Over The Counter

The advertising seems to

2010-05-03T15:55:00.000-07:00

be helping. Either that or the economy is improving. We start a new round of ads this month. We rotated four over the last six months and I think they have run their course. We'll see how this new batch works.

Let's try some advertising

2009-09-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

As the daily customer count continues to decline, next week we have some print ads going into the newspaper. I have a friend who is a marketing major and we've been working on the ads for about a month.

And, while it is interesting to see the customer count go down, the loyalty of the customers I have seems to be improving. It is likely a failure to generate enough traffic to maintain a good product mix.

And while it was supposed to be a short week I'm at the store waiting fro the distributor truck which usually comes on Friday but is supposed to be here "sometime" today. This is the part of owning a business that really sucks.

That and this: Yesterday i had a woman come in and talked with me for 15 minutes about her removed gallbladder. She was doing most things right and one of the things I suggested was a daily multiple in a capsule or liquid cap to help absorption with her compromised digestion. At the end of the conversation she actually had the nerve to ask me where in town the lowest priced product was because she "knew" my prices were higher then some. Sometimes you just gotta shake your head...

A Respite

2009-01-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

So, it's been two and a half years since Ranae took the county position. I've gotten a day off here and there, and though I've closed weekends, there has been a sustained vacation. Next week Ranae will work for me Tuesday through Friday as I head down to a equine expo in Pomona. I've volunteered the last three years and they invited me to work for them this year.

It'll be good for me to get away, I know. Lately, the business has had some erratic volume. One day it will be very busy and the next it will be slow. Maybe that's a sign of the economy, I don't know. It's frustrating though, and the last thing a business needs right now is an owner frustrated by customers. Trying to keep the shelves stock when turnover is inconsistent is tough. If I run out of something, the customers are understandably upset. I think I've held up pretty well, but it's wearing on me. I'm hopeful the change of venue next week will do me well.

Score one for Nature

2008-12-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

From my many days of listening to Dr. Drew and Adam on Loveline there would be these discussions of "Why does Nature do that?" And, it was generally a question of why would we evolve a certain way. On there show it might be that people gain weight easily because that helped them survive during times of famine. Or, why women were attracted to men who are assholes and their conclusions were that those men offered the better genetic make-up to survive.

In my store I talk with women dealing with menopause. It seems one of the universal symptoms is memory loss. It can be pretty devastating. Doing this for as long as I have, I've know some of these women for 10 or 15 years and have seen a few very sharp intelligent gals struggle with this phenomena and I started wondering why nature would play such a cruel trick.

Here's what I came up with. Now, remember this is explained by evolution which means superior survival genetics were carried forward. So, why would a woman need to have a failed memory to help her survive after menopause? My conclusion is that most early cultures were more maternal, they didn't really need men for survival, but after a woman past child bearing age she became less important to the tribe. Therefore she would be more dependent on a man. Many men are can be pretty brutal to women in their early years whether it's lying or cheating or other forms of abuse. In order for a woman to get past all that, Nature erases her memory. Pretty simple, huh?

Pretty stupid, too, but isn't that what blogs are for?

coincidence?!

2008-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to see guitarist Tab Benoit at a local venue. There are four independent health food stores in our town. When we got to the show we immediately saw one of the other owners. We are friendly with each other. Our stores are in different parts of town.

After chatting a bit, I went to get some drinks. On the way to the bar I saw an owner of a different store.

The opening act went on and during the intermission we ran into a sales rep for the one or our supplement suppliers. I guess he's a big fan of Tab and follows him around whenever he gets the chance.

So, in this crowd of 500 people there were three of the four owners and traveling supplement salesman. That was just weird.

The music was great. Tab Benoit puts on a terrific show.

Revenge is a Great Motivator

2008-11-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

The other day a guy came in looking for workout supplements. He was a pretty big guy probably in his late 20's. He was stocky with kind of a soft look to him. Through our conversation he said he had lost a bunch of weight in a short time and was looking for supplements to tone up. "great", I said and showed him some things I thought would help. He kept coming back to the issue of his weight loss and asking what would be good to tone. He said he had lost so much weight his skin was sagging.

When I asked how much weight he had lost he said 180 pounds! I had estimated that he still weighed close to two bells and he confirmed it at 192. I asked him how he lost the weight and he said he was in prison and he did burpees (the military squat-thrusts) every day for 18 months. Wow, so he lost 180 pounds in 18 months on prison food and burpees.

I asked him what he was incarcerated for and he said he caught his wife sleeping with another guy and kicked the crap out of him and was arrested. And, he went on, he was getting in shape to get out of jail to kick the crap out of him again. But, as time went by and he lost the weight he got his self-respect back and now he was just trying to better himself.

We talked some more and he lifted his shirt to show me the excess skin. It was pretty amazing. The skin hadn't tightened at all and the folds had these dark lines in them that gave him a pretty eerie look. I told him I hadn't had much experience with this but I thought the skin would eventually compensate.

It was good to see how he channeled his anger and was able to work through the whole thing. sounds like he was moving on...

A Political

2008-10-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

I have to remain a political because I get customers from both sides who are very passionate for their candidate. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass who wins. It won't make a difference in my life. I vote, I just doubt it makes a difference.

What gets me is the talk of Obama's past. They dig deep into his history. Now I don't know anything about this other than what my customers rant about. Like the one who was just in who said Obama was born to two illegal alien parents and he denounced his US citizenship to go to school somewhere. (No, really, this is how vague this shit is).

What difference does it make what he did or didn't do 30 years ago. Clinton groomed himself to be president every day of his life and what did he do when he got there? He let an intern blow him. C'mon people, think a little bit.

It Just Makes Me Want to Spit

2008-09-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning a gal comes in with two gift certificates we had issued for their charity event back in May. We had put a September 30 deadline on them and she came to redeem them. I was led to understand they were going to be used as door prizes, yet she had both $50 certificates. During the course of our conversation she said they were both given away at the same time. A little later she let on that she was an administrator for the charity. Maybe it was legit, but it smelled a bit stinky to me.

About an hour ago a different woman calls says she always appreciated our knowledge and she had a few questions. I listened to her situations and answered her questions and was on the phone with her for a little more than 5 minutes when a customer came in. I told her I had to go and we said our good-byes. Sixty seconds later the phone rings and she asks the same questions I had just answered. I said, "You just called and we spoke"

"This isn't XYZ Store (my competitor)?" she asked.

"No, ma'am it's not, it's the store you just called", apparently she was just calling around to all the stores to see if she could get a consensus of advice. Who knows where she will eventually shop.

You Do What You Gotta Do

2008-09-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

Man and wife came in yesterday. Both Hispanics, she was looking for something for diabetes and he was looking for something for colon cancer. We did the best we could, but I'm more comfortable directing cases like this to traditional medicine. He said they lost their insurance and they were just going to get by the best they can. When I suggested diabetes is pretty hard to control without medication he replied, You gotta do what you gotta do."

A Thought Circle

2008-08-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to generally dwell in the negative. With the news of some of the media people who recently died suddenly and who were about my age, it did get me thinking about death. When I was younger, the thought of being in my mid-fifties was unfathomable. Really, we thought, "who would want to be that old?" Now, I'm here. Am I going to be one who dies young? Are these thoughts part of the aging process. Did Tim Russert have inklings he might not be healthy? Did he feel bad and just not tell anyone?

Once I started to think about it, I couldn't stop. Would I miss the world? I'm not really sure. Will I miss the people closest to me? Most certainly. Have I done everything I've wanted to do? Well, I'm definitely past the age for all the really cool stuff. The rest of the stuff is like junk in your garage. It's there, but I probably won't ever get around to it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my life. It's just as I have built it. I found a woman who loves and I get to love back. I got to spend 13 years working with my dad and learning more about him. I've gotten to surround my life with animals which has been nice, since I've never quite really figured out the friend-relationship with people thing.

And, so it's gone for the last couple of weeks. It's been weird. I thought about my funeral. How many people would be there? What kind of music would I like? I came close to making a mix up. That's not me. I don't think about dying. What's up with that? So, I thought if I just wrote some of it down, like many other issues that have come up, my brain would just let it go.

Yeah, Well do something!

2008-06-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to post on this blog anymore mainly because no one reads it anymore (see how I implied someone used to read it), but it's a great place just to vent which is why I set it up in the first place.

Lately, people have been complaining about the gas prices. It's tough out there. Business is down because of it. Budgets are tight. Hello! People! Anyone remember the gas crisis of 1973. Gas "soared" to $2 a gallon. People were outraged. The mid east were sticking it to us then too. The big difference between then and now. You couldn't get gas then. You had to buy it on certain days. I worked at a station that only got about 75% of it's allotment.

Back then we all said let's get fuel efficient, let's find alternatives. Now 25 years later gas is $5 a gallon and, while we bitch, we just go pumping away. Soon, I predict there will be the hucksters showing you how a simple device, attached to your car, could double your mileage for only $99.

Sorry, folks, I don't mean to be insensitive. We had a chance to something a long time ago. We didn't then, it's doubtful we will do it now. We can keep hoping it gets better.

A prediction of inflation

2008-05-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself any sort of financial guru or anything but I'd like to predict that in the next 12-18 months inflation is going to start rampaging our economy. Not sure exactly why I feel this way, but essentially I think it will work like this. People will finally get tired of waiting for their property values to go up and gas and food prices to go down. People will start to charge more for their goods and services and that will start the cycle of inflation.

So, I just wanted to go on record with this simplistic notion.

high expectations

2008-04-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Last Friday at 5:12 (we close at 5:30) the phone rings. We do have a mail order service and we are pretty quick at getting orders out. The man on the phone identifies himself as a mail order customer and asks me to send him his multiple vitamin. "Sure", I say, "I'll get it out Monday morning."

"Ahhhh", I could hear the disappointment in his voice, "I was hoping it would go out today."

I explained it was ten after five the last post office pickup was at five and UPS closed at six, he resigned himself to getting it a few days later.

2008-03-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

It's nice the days are getting longer. It's very warm here - they say in the 80's today. It's nice to go home and have a little light left to putter around in.

I picked my NCAA brackets and joined a public group. My picks took all of 10 minutes. I just did it on a lark. Today I looked to see how I'm doing. I'm in 4th place in a group of 500. That's just stupid.

A longtime customer came in today. He has prostate cancer. He goes to UCLA tomorrow for evaluation. I keep telling myself to get checked. Somehow I can't seem to move it up on my list.

Safe for another year

2008-03-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

Max, my Australian Shepard, is almost 7 years old. He's been coming to work with me since I got him at nine weeks of age. He goes most places with me. Mostly because I like his company and mainly because he has nothing else going on. Every year the health dept comes in and inspects our facility. Because we package food we are technically not allowed to have an animal on the premises. We had the same inspector for a couple of years and he always made a point of reminding me of the "official code", but he never enforced it. He did however admonish me and say a different inspector may come along and choose to enforce the code.

Last year our health dept changed to a grading system similar to one in place in L.A. County. You get a letter grade - "A", "B", "C",etc. and you have to put this big placard in the front window where everyone coming in can see your grade. Who is going to walk into a place with a "B" or "C" rating? I considered leaving Max at home, but I didn't know when the inspection was to take place. I had marked the calendar the last few years in hopes of getting a time when they might appear, but this year they were way behind schedule. I would try to keep an eye out for the plain white car they usually drive. I had a long line available at the back door to connect Max to in the event I could see one pulling up.

Well, it happened. Last week a man comes in and I'm waiting on a customer. Max is sleeping in the back room but is visible from the checkout area. I finish with my customer and the man identifies himself as the health inspector and wants to know where he could set up his computer. I said anywhere was fine, "How about right here on the front counter?"

He said great and, as he set up, he must have forgotten a cable or something because he went back to his car. Not sure if he had seen Max, I scurried to the back room, hooked Max up to the long line and stuck him out the back door. Well, he checked everything out and as he walked into the back room where I was he asked, "Where's the dog?"

"Just outside the back door. It's such a nice day", I said.

"I've got to show you something", he said as he reached into his back pocket. I thought he was going to probably pull out the "no dog" regulations or something. Instead, he wanted to show me the picture of his seven, yes seven, Huskie dogs.

He told me if his boss ever asked that he had informed me there was a no dog rule I was breaking. I told him thanks and he gave me the "A" placard to put in the front window.

She was stressed

2008-02-28T14:55:00.001-08:00

A woman came in yesterday. She was probably 40-50ish. She said she need some B-complex because she was under so much stressed. She asked about B-12 and I showed her a B-complex I thought was appropriate. B-12 comes separately, so I showed her that too. She wasn't sure if she need the product that contained ALL the B vitamins or just the B-12 and she asked me, "So, which of the B vitamins fights fat-a-goo?"

I asked, "Do you mean fatigue?"

She laughed, "You see what this stress is doing to me!"

Two new competitors

2008-02-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

We have two new competitors coming to town. One, ironically will occupy an old Krispy Kreme building. One is a deep discounter. It's hard to expect my customers to not shop there. They don't open for a couple of months yet. It will be interesting.

2008-02-18T13:05:00.000-08:00

Ranae got the day off. Gosh darn government workers. She's out riding. It's like 70 and beautiful here today. In fairness she said she was coming to give me part of the afternoon off. I love that girl.

My first couple this morning were an older couple I haven't seen for awhile. Fred had had a triple bypass and he had a ton of questions on cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar. He had about ten pages of printouts from websites he had visited and was firing all these questions at me. Before I could even answer his wife, who struggles with anxiety disorder, is firing her questions at me. I answer one, then the other. It's like they didn't even hear the other person asking me a question. They were here for most of an hour. I finally got their questions answered - I think. His poor wife. She's afraid of her own shadow. Wants to know what to take to make her feel better, but everything bothers her stomach. She needs to find a way to wind down...although that's probably a simplistic statement for a very complicated disorder. That's one of those cases where it is really hard to relate because I can't even imagine my life with that many problems.

I got up early this morning and worked with my horse Jessie for about half an hour. We just did some ground work and then I rode her bareback (something new for both of us) for about 10 minutes and it was great.

'Tis the crabby season

2008-02-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is over except for the bills, taxes are around the corner, and gas is over 3 bucks. People take this opportunity to take it out on me. "Oh, you raised the price", like I just walked around the store indiscriminately marking up prices. This particular person didn't even get it right. The product they were talking about hasn't had a price change since I brought it in.

It's interesting that last week when there was talk about the $600 economic stimulus people seemed more comfortable and relaxed. Maybe it's just me, but as soon as the bill went into the Senate people started getting edgy again. Made me wonder if some had already spent it.

It's been pretty steady, business-wise, and we're happy about that. Sent out the mailer for the website and, although it didn't generate a lot of web traffic, it has seemed to increase the customer count each day.

Message left on our store answering machine

2008-01-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Thought you might get a kick out of this.

2008-01-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

This is interesting...
Got a postcard from the "authorized distributor", purple sticky brand, for quick fix. It's a "privacy protection kit, no mixing, pour & go". A patented formula of unisex synthetic urine that easily warms to body temperature. Patent number 7,192,776. No really. It has a little logo on the front that say "u r n luck" - get it. Very clever, boys.

2008-01-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

Still feeling a bit overwhelmed. Tax season is upon us. I still have to calculate the inventory numbers. The first email newsletter goes out tomorrow. I'll probably mail out the promo postcards this week or no later than next. Caught a cold yesterday so I'm a bit stuffed up - not a good image to project, but whaddya goin'do.

At home I still have to prune the trees. We have tickets for Robben Ford on the 25th and I volunteer at Equine Affaire on the first. Is it too early to say this year is flying by?

everything is connected

2008-01-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the website so I could send out an email newsletter. It's pretty simple as far as websites go, but it will give the people who get the newsletter somewhere to go. Then I set up the newsletter account and put in the addresses I had which was less than fifty. We used to put out a printed newsletter five years ago and I got the idea to mail those people a postcard inviting them to sign up for the email newsletter, but before I could do that I had to go through the list and remove the names of the people I knew had passed away in the last five years. The list has over a thousand names on it. So now that's done I have to design the postcard I'm going to sent. In between I'm working on the content of the newsletter. I'm sure it will all get done sooner or later...

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

Well, made it through the holidays. Finished inventory on Friday and had all the year-end bill paying today. Hoping to leave in about an hour or so. It's been pretty slow today.

A power failure killed our directv access card so we have only three channels until they send us another one. Couldn't have come at a worse time - I love bowl games. Oh well, shit happens.

Be safe.

Happy New Year!

It was a small thing...

2007-12-17T13:07:00.001-08:00

But it made me feel good.

Two city employees were in the store shopping when a police officer came in. The city employees exchanged greetings and their conversation moved to the holidays. The cop was getting ready to take two weeks off, one city employee was taking Christmas week off and the third was retiring on January first. The cop looked up at me and said, "We should change the subject. We're talking about all the time we get off in front of someone who probably gets very little."

I thought it was very considerate of him to acknowledge that..

Happy Holidogs

2007-12-13T17:22:00.000-08:00

The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was in town. It looked kinda eerie at 6am in the morning.

I wonder what it's like to drive. It was in the parking lot of the local Holiday Inn. I suspect it's having an affair with the Vlasic Pickle lady.

2007-12-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

Haven't been around here much. I've been working on a real website for the business. I don't know what makes me think I can build one. I'm not particularly good at HTML and I don't have much of an "artistic creative" side, but I do so enjoy flying blind.

It's the time of year to "gift" all our service people so I've been making the famous Ritz crackers-dipped-in-chocolate-filled-with-peanut-butter holiday treats. I used three kinds of peanut butter - Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate, and Cinnamon Raisin (capitalized to demonstrate reverence) Each one color coded with M&M's to distinguish it from the others. I also baked some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (pre-made, but yummy none-the-less). Now, I'm just waiting for my gift bags and I can assemble them.

Speaking of gift bags, my one customer who has me make up bags for him has asked for 21 this year. I've got to have everything in by this Friday. I usually spend more time on his bags than my own shopping. Is that sad?

Looks like my days as a yoga teacher our nearing an end. I've got to give up something and, while I enjoy teaching my small, yet loyal, band of students I'm not "in harmony" with the management. I can use the extra time that's for sure.

Max was neutered last week. "They" say it will help him live longer and I promised myself that if I hadn't bred him by the time he was six I'd have it done. He was more than six and a half. The health inspector is due here any day and I always feel a bit nervous about that. They have a new rating system this year and I never know how strict the will be about having a dog here.

That's enough for now, better run...

2007-11-13T11:19:00.000-08:00

Saw the guy I blogged about before who claimed smoking hadn't caused his emphysema. He continued to smoke and knew there was an herbal cure and claimed I was withholding it from him. I told him to quit smoking and he got all pissy about it. Today he was carrying around an oxygen bottle. I felt bad for the guy. He was still looking for the miracle cure and, he was still smoking.

Sometimes I think people just ask questions to ask questions. This from a 60+yr old woman: "Can celery be addicting?"

2007-11-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

James Taylor tickets are EIGHTY BUCKS! Worse yet it's at the hockey arena. They usually put the stage at one end so you have to sit in your seat sideways to watch the show. Did I mention the seats are so close you can rest your chin on your knees?

A man with a cause

2007-10-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

We went to a natural foods convention in Long Beach this past weekend. The keynote speaker on Sunday morning was Ed Begley. He came dressed in jeans and tennis shoes. He's lived his life as a friend of the environment. He had an electric car in 1990. He lives in Studio City and the first thing he did when he bought his first house was to put in a drought resistant yard. For almost 40 years he's been living like this and I think that's pretty impressive in this day and age (I sound like my Grandpa).

We were really impressed with Long Beach. We walked miles through the harbor area. It was a good thing because we ate way too much. There are many lovely and unique shopping opportunities. The weather was gorgeous - 80 and partly cloudy.

It was good to get away.

Don't you know you're riding with the King

2007-10-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last night we got to see B.B.King in the restored Fox theater that sits about 1500. At 82 if he's lost any, it's sure hard to tell. His diabetes and bad knees necessitated him sitting in a big, comfy chair but his voice was as sweet and rich as ever. The Fox was a perfect venue for this concert. Warm and intimate it lent itself to BB's story telling in between songs. And yet it wasn't too confining for the five brass players, big time drummer and keyboard players to really cut loose in. It was our first time seeing him in concert. Hard to say how long he'll be around. I would have liked to hear more long guitar solos from him. I just don't think he had the stamina. The audience was pretty diverse. I saw a kid who couldn't have been older than 12 all the way up to a few patrons that needed walkers to get to their seats. It was an extremely fun evening.

2007-10-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Bill, the man we bought the store from 23 years ago passed away on Sunday. He was 88. He was a gentleman, kind, generous, and trusting. He helped us out in many ways as we learned how to operate the business. He had bought the business back in 1972 mostly as a business venture. Along with his wife and son and two daughters they had a good run. In the late 70's his son contracted cancer and they lost him very quickly. It's hard to recover from that, but they did.

He had a good, full life. Last Father's Day he stumbled as he was answering the phone, fell and broke his hip. During his recovery he contracted congestive heart failure and he went downhill fast.

I like telling the story of how we came to purchase the business. I was working with my Dad in our oilfield machine shop across the street from the store. Before going full time with him I was working at a plastics factory on a rotating shift. I was experimenting with nutritional supplements (among other things) trying to help myself get used to the shift changes and had shopped many times in the store. Shortly after going full-time with my Dad I realized oilfield machining wasn't going to be my life's work. Shopping in the store one day I casually asked Bill if there was room in town for another vitamin store and how one would go about opening a store like this. He said I'm turning 65 soon and looking to retire, why don't you just buy this place? We hocked everything we owned and 2 months later we were the proud owners. It was a struggle for a while and whenever we needed help we just called Bill and he was there with some good advice and words of encouragement.

We'll miss him

I'm in the wrong business

2007-10-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday night we went to the county fair. It was packed. As we walked down the midway the lines were six wide and 20 people deep for the deep fired snickers bars...

Another day off?

2007-09-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

A picture of the kitten we found while riding a couple of weeks ago. If she thinks she's going to weasel her way into our hearts, forget it. The other cats beat her up all the time. Though she oozes cuteness we have steeled our hearts. Yeah, right.

We had a great weekend. It was hot as blazes here - like 104-107 hot - with humidity. We still managed to ride all three days. Saturday was an evening ride and Sunday was a river ride, although there's no water in the river right now (drought and all that).

Ranae has vacation time and comp time built up and she offered to give me a day off so I get tomorrow off. Yeah. I have a ride planned to the saddle shop to see if my saddle is okay for my horse with all the riding we are doing. It's about seven miles out. Got the ipod charged. Hope the horse is ready.

It's been steady here of late, which is good. The yoga classes are going just okay. Don't think many folks like to get up early for yoga. I looking to put on a "Yoga for Horse Lovers" series in January. We'll see if that generates any interest. I'm working on the lesson plan now. I figure I need to have everything done by the end of November to get enough promotion time in.

Lightening but no thunder

2007-08-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 5 am to play tennis. Clouds everywhere and it was 106 yesterday and they were saying it would be 107 today. Very sticky. We saw glimpses of lightening in almost every direction. It must have been very far off because we didn't hear any thunder. It was neat looking. Tennis was a sweatfest. Looking forward to the three-day weekend.

2007-08-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

One of our customers has a blueprint service and the owner took the newspaper article about our store and mounted in a beautiful wooden frame. Our customers are the greatest.

The freezer went out today. Sometimes it just feels like the whole place is falling apart.

Smoke gets in your eyes

2007-08-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

There's a fire burning in Santa Barbara more than a hundred miles away. Every afternoon the smoke drifts in our direction. They say the fire will not be contained for another two weeks. It makes for some beautiful sunsets.

Oh, one more thing..

2007-08-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

As much as I hated to, I sent the new computer packing. It was far too frustrating and unproductive trying to figure out the new Vista. I would also have to upgrade the software on my other computers and that would have cost more than the computer. Maybe in a year Vista II will come out and it will be more workable.

2007-08-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Have you watched the HBO's John From Cincinnati? It's a David Milch show. Milch was behind Deadwood, one of my favorite shows so I thought I'd give JFC a shot. I can't quite explain its attraction. It is thought provoking and there's a mystery that is tough to figure out. The season finale didn't quite close up all the loose ends for me and it will be interesting to see what direction it takes IF there is another season.

I went to the HBO site to see if there was any insight into the last episode and there was an article talking about one of the background skateboarders with a link that takes you to a video of this guy doing some very amazing things. Check it out:
Rodney Mullen is his name and he's pretty awesome.

Vista Schmista

2007-08-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to get a new laptop from Dell. It has the new Vista operating system, a huge hard drive, and a nice, big screen. Well, I hooked it up to my network, with my other two XP machines and the whole thing crashed. I finally got the old laptop up and on the net but it's been extremely frustrating. I'm thinking of calling Dell and asking them to take it back. I hate returning things. If I keep it I will have to buy all new versions of my most used software. Microsoft, what have ye done?

Last night, after hours of frustration, I call AT&T internet services and he stayed on the phone with me for an hour and a half (from India, where it's the monsoon season) and the desktop computer still was never able to get back on the net. It's a good thing I have the old laptop.

I did also get a new sony cybershot camera and it is a blast. We've been taking pictures and videos of each other riding our horses and critiquing(?) our style.

The article came out in the paper and it's very nice. It's been a little busier than normal. The phone has been ringing a lot. I did think I would be too busy to sit down and write a post.

The Dog Days

2007-07-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

It's the dog days of summer. Temperatures in the 100's and everybody heads for the beach or vacation before the start of school. It's been pretty quiet here. The newspaper article comes out next Monday. I think that will definitely help business - if anyone is in town to read it.

Rode out at the river again on Saturday. My mare Jessie is having a problem loping so the training program I'm using has what is called a "passenger lesson". You cue the horse to go and the horse goes and you don't steer. The horse gets to go anywhere she wants in the arena. Later, after you've got the "go" working you develop the steering. We've done this exercise at a trot many times and she's good at it. When I ask her to lope she takes off in almost a full gallop. And, that's the point of the exercise. You let them lope/gallop until they are out of gas and just want to lope at a slow steady pace. Well, I did it on Jess for about 10 minutes. It was quite a ride. She did start to slow down at the end, but she still had some energy left in the tank. It had to be in the mid nineties out there and I was sweating up a storm just hanging on. It was a pretty big arena and it was kinda fun just letting her run. My GPS watch showed she was hitting speeds of 18.5 mph. A good soft lope should be about half that. Probably should have done it longer but I didn't have the heart to keep running her around in that heat. We'll try it again when it's cooler.

Harvested a bucket full of tomatoes and bell peppers and put them on the counter to give away to whoever wants them.

2007-07-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

Rode my horse Jessie out on Saturday with my ipod. There was something magical riding listening to music. Horses are so in tune with what's going on around them I swear she could hear (or feel) the music. It was only the second time we had been riding out alone but she was much more relaxed than the first time. It was very warm but great fun.

Sunday, Ranae and I went to the river. We had a nice relaxing ride and the horses behaved quite nicely. A great way to spend a summer afternoon.

Another summer in paradise

2007-07-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a month and the article in the paper hasn't been published. How depressing. My life is so boring that a writer with a degree in journalism can't make sound interesting. Actually, I'm having quite a rich summer. My new horse, Jessie, is coming along nicely. We rode for over twelve miles on Saturday, a new personal distance best. I could have done without the hard drive on my laptop crashing and spending almost a month trying to recover my music files, pictures, and important (unbacked-up) business files.

The AC in the store is working great and last month's bill was actually lower, which is nice. The tomato plants are cranking out the fruit so I get to give some away free to my customers.

And, so it goes...

my ipod knows me..

2007-06-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Quite often if I'm not listening to a podcast (might I recommend Flashlight Discovery?), I just put my ipod on shuffle songs. I think there are about 1,000 songs on it. Saturday, before we went to the local blues festival featuring Walter Trout, I was listening to it in this mode. I shut it off, with about 15 seconds left in a Bruce Hornsby song. We went to the concert and Walter played many songs from his new cd. It was a really good concert.

Sunday morning I take my ipod out and turn it on. As it comes on, I'm thinking about the concert and realized Walter had not played The Life I Chose, one of my favorite songs to play if I'm feeling sorry for myself about working to long or not taking vacation or whatever. I hit play, the ipod plays the last 15 seconds of Down the Road Again and, you guessed it, the very next song was The Life I Chose.

Wish I could do that with Lotto numbers...

Quick update

2007-06-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

I doubt anyone reads this anymore, but here's some news about the store.

The local newspaper writer spent about two hours here yesterday. The paper is doing a feature (all together now, "WOOOooooooo") on us, which will be very good for business, provided I didn't sound like too much of a dick.

The air conditioning is nice. I keep it at a cool 75 for now. That might change when I get the electric bill. But....one of our cold boxes bit the dust. I moved everything into our big cold box. Not sure if I'll fix the thirty year old beast or try to make do without.

Oh, and this was kinda cool. Last Saturday we (the three teacher apprentices and the two teachers) went to a two hour yoga workshop in West Hollywood. I was NOT looking forward to giving up part of my Saturday, but it turned out to be quite fun. Afterwards, one of the friends of another instructor directed us to The Abbey, in West Hollywood, a very happening, predominately gay restaurant/bar that provided some most excellent people-watching.

Ranae is in New York on vacation with her girlfriends until next Wednesday, so it's me and Max till then.

I didn't think they did that anymore

2007-06-06T14:08:00.001-07:00

In the last two days I've had three women pull their money or the wallet from their bra strap. Don't know why, but that just cracks me up.

It's not BAD weird, but it still seems weird

2007-05-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

People want to give me things. I'm flattered. One customer was having St Francis of Assi's prayer printed and he offered me a copy. Another woman had a cd of her singing in her younger days. Operatic stuff. She sounds pretty good.

Yesterday I had two customers who started telling me stories. In both cases the conversations lasted at least 20 minutes and in both cases they repeated the same parts of their respective stories at least three times. It must be the heat.

Edit: Yesterday, a different customer sent me a copy of a newsletter after calling me on the phone and having me tell him I had already read it. (I shaking my head like the AFLAC duck now). I told another customer I was thinking of going to the Harry Connick concert and she said, "Hey, I have his new cd in my car and it's not my kind of music. Do you want it?" I said, "Sure" faster than Kramer on Seinfeld.

Lastly, (or not) a girl came in worried that a law was passed (very vague) that said almond growers could label almonds they had sprayed as raw. I called our almond supplier right there on the spot and asked them if they could or did do that and they said, "no, we just shell them, put them in a box, and send them to you." I was satisfied, she was not and she wanted to leave me a book to read about "the conspiracy". She read the look of disinterest on my face and left. Damn, maybe that's the end of the gift giving.

Oh, yeah almost forgot..

2007-04-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

My early morning yoga class starts tomorrow. I'm officially (if not temporarily) a yoga instructor. I wonder if anyone will show up for my 7am class.

2007-04-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

We before last I was so busy I didn't know what to do. Last week was super slow. And, I had all the kinda weird customers like the lady who came in and said she was allergic to wheat and gluten and asked what we had that did NOT contain that. I showed her what we had and couldn't help but notice the Baja Fresh soda in her hand and asked what she had there for lunch. "Their burrito", she said.

"What kinda of tortilla?", I asked.

"Oh, no", she replied, "I think it was flour."

Maybe it's the full moon...

2007-04-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

When I was younger I read everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote. I was fascinated with his writing style. It's probably not very healthy to devour just one author so completely, especially at such a young age. I was sad to hear he had passed away. He was 84. He had a good long life. I did learn something about the way he wrote. He said that he wrote everything for just one person, his sister Cecelia who died of cancer when she was 30.

Kurt Vonnegut said the only proof he needed for the existence of god was music.

Stuff

2007-04-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

Lots been going on around here. I've been working on upgrading our evaporative cooler here at the store to an actual, real life air conditioning. The had to install new ducting, and electrical. This building was built in 1921 and, I swear they thought electricity was going to be a passing fad. The put three electrical outlets on one side of the building and three on the other. The electrician's mouth watered when he got tot see all the work he was going to get to do. It was a bit tricky. They had to shut power off for almost three hours. My freezer was about at the limit of its coolness. But we got the job done just in time for another cold snap to hit. The next project is to replace the front transom windows that leak like an old barn. The guy is coming to measure them today. More $$$.

I joined a horse training website/club that has a blog section so as not to bore you all here. Jessie is coming along very nicely and it's great having a horse again. Max and I stopped by the fairgrounds this morning before work because there was a horse show going on. We hung out for an hour or so and watched the reiners and the pole benders.

Sent my Creative Zen MP3 back because it wouldn't let me use all my itunes music. I was bummed. It was a pretty nice unit with some very nice features. A little difficult to set up. I did get an ipod to replace it and that thing meshed perfectly with itunes. I've got all my music in one place now, or actually two places - the computer and the ipod. Would have been nice to just upload to the ipod without having to tack up computer space.

Oh well, the window guy is here to take the measurements - back to work.

My second horse

2007-03-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

This is Jessie. She's a 7 yr old registered quarter horse. She's even prettier in person.

comments

2007-03-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

I think my back blog comments feature finally died. I think the blogger feature is working now. I'm such a bad blogger.

2007-03-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty cool video.

There's a little 15 sec commercial first, but the video is worth the wait.

2007-02-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

I've been taking yoga once a week from the same instructor for the past five years or so. She has opened her own studio with another teacher. They've asked me and two other students to get together and learn how to teach. I've been going to the teaching classes once a week for the last two months. Now they are expecting us to actually teach a class. My first class is scheduled for Saturday, March 3rd. What the hell was I thinking? It's harder than it looks.

2007-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday this guy comes in asking for some herbs that I know are used by some people who have cance. He also asked if we had a calcium/mag combo that had twice as much magnesium (Totally backwards of the usual formulations). Then he started to tell me how the extra magnesium is the anti-cancer formula. And, while I was familiar with it, I let him wax on.

Later, after telling me he was dealing with cancer, he asked if I knew any natural practitioners in town who could help him with the supplements he was taking. I told him I didn't really know anyone I could recommend. He said, "I'll do anything, man. Anything."

I said, "Really? Anything? Would you quit smoking?"

"I'm working on that", he said, "But that's not the only factor with my disease."

No, I thought to myself, that extra magnesium you want, that's probably more important. I feel sorry for the guy because he's so hooked on tobacco, but I feel angry, too, that he thinks he can heal himself while inhaling all those toxins. The anger probably comes because I was the same way years ago and I look back on some of the rationalizations I made and realize how totally stupid they were.

This was me twenty five years ago...

2007-02-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

Alice came in yesterday. Alice is about 70 years old. Poor Alice is in pain. She has back problems and is "on medication". She came in to get some cranberry capsules. She had used some before and had a brand she liked but couldn't remember the name. I know this because she told me the long, tedious story of the last time she purchased them. Did I mention she.... talks.... very.... s l o w l y, in a quiet voice. So quiet I have to bend over to hear her.

We carry two brands of cranberry capsules and I put both of them on the counter. She stared at them for the next 20 minutes. Intently reading one label then looking over to the other label. Back to the first label, then the second. Back and forth. Every once in awhile she would ask a question and I would answer her as clearly as possible. There wasn't a substantial difference between the two products. We stood at the counter for twenty minutes trying to decide which brand to purchase. I don't mean to make fun of her, it was kinda sad really, but she reminded me of a stoner. Near the end of the process she says, "Well, I guess I'll get this one." Thirty seconds later she says, "No, I think I'll get this one." And went on to change her mind at least twice more. It was so surreal I could only stand there and smile. She finally made a decision, but I don't think she should really be driving.

You think YOU have problems

2007-02-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

A guy in his mid-twenties came in at 11 am this morning asking for niacin (vitamin B-3). He said he had to pass a drug test and heard taking niacin would clear his system. I asked him the last time he used and he said midnight. I asked when his test was. Anytime before 5 pm. It was a condition of his parole to be tested. He got out last Friday. I asked if he had taken meth and he said yes and pot too. He didn't think they tested for pot though. I think he really expects to take one or two of these capsules and magically the meth will be undectable. Poor soul

2007-02-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

Spent the weekend at the Equine Affaire in Pomona. Drove down Friday morning after waking up at four am. Then drove back that night, and Ranae and I drove down Saturday morning. We volunteered and got to hang out behind the scenes. The days were long, but all in all it was fun. We go to see the clinicians up close and we got to see a lot of horses. The highlight was a Chris Cox demonstration with a 6 year horse who hadn't been ridden for THREE YEARS because it bucked. When he put the saddle on this horse he got it to move around and it jumped and kicked higher than any horse I had seen. It jumped so high once he lost his balance and fell down. After two hours he was riding this horse around this arena on a loose rein.

Now I've got to shop for a horse. Once bitten, twice shy. I've got to find a horse that's medically sound this time. I'm a bit anxious about the whole process...

2007-01-30T11:21:00.000-08:00

I put Tex down last weekend. After struggling with his lameness problems we had a full workup done and discovered he had a degenerative disease of a bone in both front feet. There were few treatment options that had any chance of success. I hated to let him go, but I couldn't stand the thought that every time I rode him, he would be in pain.

Tex was a pain in the ass to treat at the vet hospital. The doctor said he was the most difficult horse he had worked with in the last two months. Obviously, Tex didn't get much attention when he was a kid. Despite all that he was coming along nicely at home. Other than the fact he could barely walk after I rode him, he was behaving beautifully. He was doing all the things I asked of him. I was really beginning to see that under that gruff, protected exterior he had a very sharp mind and a pretty big heart.

I know now that I needed to do more research before buying him. It was an expensive lesson, but it taught me a lot. Now, I just hope I can carry that knowledge into my next purchase.

This weekend we're going to the Equine Affair in Pomona. Both of us are volunteering so we should get very close to the action. Ahh, it's nice to have weekends off...

2007-01-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

There was a quarter-page "Lost Dog" ad in the metro section of the local newspaper. The ad announced a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR REWARD for the return of their golden retriever mix - no questions asked. Wow!

It's too cold

2007-01-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

It's down right frosty here. Spent the weekend fixing broken water pipes. They said it got down to 24 but I know it was colder. Friday night we went to dinner with our neighbors. They drove their Yukon with the thermometer in the rearview mirror. We came into town for dinner. It's about 7 miles. When we left the restaurant the temperature registered 40. As we got closer to home the temperature kept dropping. In the last 1/2 mile to our house it dropped 3 degrees! Three of the pipes that broke were insulated.

While it IS cold, it's very clear. We had a couple of very nice rides in betwixt the plumbing repair. The bring sheep in to graze on the dormant alfalfa fields near our house. We thought it would be a good idea to ride up and take a look at them. The horses didn't think that was such a good idea...

the iphone

2007-01-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Want to watch Steve Jobs introduction to the iphone at Macworld? It is amazing.

2007-01-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

There's a chance it might snow here on Friday! It will be the first time since 1999. This global warming thing is kerazy!

Happy New Year

2007-01-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile, and from incredible number of comments, I can tell you're all dying for an update.

I decided to change the hours of the store. We are now closed on Saturdays and open an hour later on weekdays. The new hours officially started last weekend. Not sure how many people are going to be pissed off, but having Saturdays off after twenty-some years is going to be awesome.

December was incredibly hectic. I had the Christmas gift bags for one of our customers to get ready. Business has been pretty good the last month or so. Of course, I had to find time to get my own shopping in. Ranae's office was so busy, she got the option of coming in early and earning "comp" time which we'll be able to use when the days get a little longer. We had three days off for Christmas, which was sweet.

We were able to go riding 3 days both Christmas and New Year's weekend. Tex has healed up nicely. His demeaner has decidedly changed. I'm not sure if it was all the doctoring on the back foot or what, but he has more confidence. I've had him one year now and he is a completly different horse.

Had to do inventory New Year's weekend and now I've got to catch up on all the year-end stuff. Plus, do inventory, picking up each and every item in the store and looking at it, offers insight into how long a product has been on the shelf, what kind of product mix we have, and what's selling and what's not. It gave me a few ideas I hope to integrate in the coming months.

I'm using the "new" blogger. I didn't stop down and see what the new features are. It looks real close to the old one. I'm sure there's a ton of great features I'll never use...

What a chase scene!

2006-11-20T08:50:00.000-08:00

The opening chase scene in the new Bond movie, Casino Royale, is truly amazing. You get a clue it's coming up when you see in the opening credits (yes, the Opening credits) "Running stunts by....". I didn't get his name, but he earned the starring credit. The new Bond, Daniel Craig, was very good - I liked him. He has a bit of a Steve McQueen thing going on. (He runs like the cop in Terminater (2, I think)). He sure gets the shit knock out of him from time to time. It's 007's first mission with his newly issued "license to kill" and the movie kinda waffles between him caring about the people he kills and not caring. The action, when it happens, is all very cool and Bond-ish. There were some slow parts where they tried to bring in some emotion into the mix, instead of making it just a bang-bang action flick like Mission Impossible. For the most part everything worked very well and, if you like action flicks, it's well worth the nine bucks.

She doesn't mind the commercials...

2006-11-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

Our cat, Smoggy, has taken to watching tv. Same tv, in the same place, she's two years old and she just started watching it. She really enjoys the horse training shows and she seems to like Gray's Anatomy although she hasn't been watching with the same enthusiasm since gray dropped the hunky hot veterinarian.

Changed Tex's bandage this morning. Here's what the wound looks like after a week.

2006-11-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

A week ago Wednesday I went home to find my horse with a gash on his right hind fetlock (just above the hoof). The water trough, which is an old cast iron, enameled-covered bathtub, was moved about three feet. The tub itself must weigh at least 150 lbs and it was half full of water and up against a fence when I left for work. It had to weigh at least 300 lbs. How he happened to move it and get his food caught in there will forever be a mystery.

He was pretty shaken up when I got home. I was able to hose off the wound, but it wasn't until the next morning that I could tell I needed to take him to the vet. With Ranae's new job and me alone at the store it's pretty difficult to get to vet. Ranae was able to get a couple of hours off and I was able to get him in the trailer and to the vet before they closed. The vet wasn't there, so her assistants were charged with cleaning and wrapping the wound. My horse is a big pussy. He was being real skittish about letting them get near that foot. They were able to get it clean and bandaged.

Later the vet called and said she gave him a tranquilizer first but that "didn't even faze him". Then she said she gave him enough anesthetic to geld any other horse and she was able to get in there and clean things up, but she wasn't able to suture the wound like she would have preferred. The way she was talking to me, I could tell she didn't think I was going to be able to change the bandage and she wanted to keep him there over the weekend. To me, it's one thing to stay in the hospital for specialized medical care, and quite another to stay because he's being an ass. This deal was already racking up $$$ and five more days in the hospital was going to break my budget. Besides, I thought if I could get him home I would be able to calm him down. I convinced her to let me pick him up on Saturday. I had to cancel my LA trip to the horse training clinic - the one I'd been waiting eight months to attend.

Once I got him home I started working with him to get him used to me touching that leg. One of the most scary situations I know of is standing next to that hind quarter, picking up that foot and feeling the muscles twitching. After about forty minutes I was able to get him to let me touch that leg all over while he stood still. A good start. I wouldn't have to change the bandage for two more days. By then I hoped he would be pretty used to it.

Sunday we spent the whole day at the horse thing. It was pretty interesting. By the time we got home I didn't have any time to work Tex. I got up at 5am and worked with the leg for about half an hour. At 6 I woke up Ranae so she could help me and Tex held pretty still while I removed the old bandage, smeared this white paste salve over the wounds and re-bandaged him. That was a pretty good feeling.

Tomorrow he gets the bandage changed again. I've been working on him every opportunity. I'm hoping it goes as easily as the last time. More importantly, I hope everyting is healing properly under there. I've removed the old water/bathtub and replaced it with a regular horse waterer. Sure would like to know how he got in this mess.

2006-11-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

I bouught some new ear buds from Skull candy for my walkman. They sound great. Now I'm looking at finally getting a MP3 player. I'm looking at the Creative Zen Vision. It's gotten pretty good reviews and appears to have a lot of features. I probably should just get an ipod, but I'm in support the "little guy" mode. (Yeah, like Creative is the little guy)

I haven't been blogging much because business has sucked and I would just sound bitter. I was going over the numbers and the daily customer count (how many people walk in the front door) is down almost 20% from January. I have no idea what we're doing differently or why this trend is happening. I've been working harder/longer than ever and it just keeps sliding. It's depressing. After the first of the year we're going to close on Saturdays and open an hour later during the week. I'm not going to kill myself forcing this thing to work. Life wouldn't end if we eventually had to close. Ranae's getting along pretty well with her new job. I think she likes the fact that she doesn't have to worry about stuff. She's off at five, forgets about work over the weekend and is accruing vacation time, sick leave and retirement.

This weekend I get to see my favorite horse clinician in Burbank. It's a two-day event/demostration. It'll be a lot of fun. I got to ride my neighbor's horse over the weekend. He had him at the trainer for three months teaching this horse how to calf rope and he let me ride him a week after he gets him back. My neighbor says the horse needs to work and he has a hard time "just riding" him. It was fun riding a different horse. This horse had been riding in an arena for the last 4-6 months and when we took him out in the real world he was checking everything out.

tHE uLTIMATE fIGHTING cHAMPIONSHIPS

2006-10-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

You're going to love this. Just click on the poster.

2006-10-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

We saw The Departed last night. An excellent movie. Scorcese did a fantastic job with the story. Nicholson was, well, Nicholson - masterful. Leonardo and Matt did pretty good jobs with their roles. It was bloody, but it was also funny in places and the dialogue was quick and witty. Definitely worth the nine bucks.

2006-10-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening sunset.

Work is cutting into my blogging time

2006-09-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to post since I'M DOING EVERYTHING AROUND HERE! But, I'm not stressed, nosireeebob, not me. That's such a lame thing to say, "I'm too busy". It's so pretentious. Makes me sound so much more important than I am. Of course I'm busy, we're all busy. That's life in the 21st century. And you know what? It's more likely to get busier than, uh less busier (god, that's an awful sentence)

We played in a tennis tournament over the weekend. I have been playing just once a week and so has Ranae. Why we thought we could play in a tournament is anyone's guess. The money entry fees support the local JC tennis program, that's probably why (yes, we are so philanthropic). We played three sets and lost on Friday night and that put us in the consolation round. Two sets and won on Saturday afternoon. Went for a 7 mile horseback ride on Sunday morning and played three sets Sunday evening and won. The Santa Ana's kicked up Saturday afternoon. Nothing like playing tennis in 20 mph winds.

The Day fire is still burning sixty miles from here. Those guys are having a hard time. Guess it's up to 140,000 acres. There was a thin layer of ash on the cars this morning. It sure has made for some beautiful sunsets though.

Going to try for a moonlight ride tonight....

2006-09-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

kris came in to our store today.

2006-09-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

It was 1991, I was working with my Dad at our machine shop. There was a crazy lady living in the apartments behind the shop that fed the wild cats. The more she fed them, the more they multiplied. We trapped and nuetered a few of them. After a year or so she moved out. Many of the cats stayed and occasionally we would see a kitten. Most times they were too feral to catch. I had been seeing this little gray kitten for about a week. We would have tuna for lunch once or twice a week and I would take him the tuna juice. At first he wouldn't get close to me, but the attraction of the juice was just too much. I snatched him up by the scruff of the neck like his mother would do and he went limp.

I brought him over to the store and Ranae put him in a box. She had a customer and when she came back he was gone. He hid in the store all night! The next day he came out to eat and was quite a bit more friendly. We took him home. The next day I went to work and Ranae called me from home to say she had found some fleas on the little guy. I told her to get a bucket with some warm soapy water, pick him up by the scruff of the neck and dip him up to his ears. She did and a bond was created. She named him Riley. While he generally just tolerated me, he was in love with Ranae. He would sleep on her side of the bed and chase anyone else off who dared to enter his territory. He would only come sit in her lap. He didn't trust many people, probably because of his feral heritage, but he trusted her.

Riley started to fail about a month ago. At age 16, things just started to fall apart. We kept him comfortable and he finally went to sleep for the last time in the shade of his favorite tree. We buried him in the garden next to his buddy, Boots, who we lost a few years ago. Riley was a good cat.

They work so hard...

2006-09-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

They work so hard, those poor little wasps, I hate to spray them with the insecticide. This nest was huge. At least six inches across. Kept wondering why I was seeing so many wasps around the house. They are all dead now. Why must the build their nests at my house? Will they ever learn?

The ultimate workout

2006-08-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this? Treadmills make me dizzy. The song is a pretty catchy tune as well.

2006-08-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

TWO drunk (or at least drinking) customers yesterday. And, they were shopping (as opposed to just stumbling in). The guy who came in at 10 am had so much booze on his breath, I could smell it from six feet away. The guy in the afternoon was just an amatuer copmpared to him. Oh, lucky day!

2006-08-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

Tex bucked me off last Friday night. I've had him for nine months now. He's bucked before, but never really hard enough to get me off. Luckily, I landed in some semi soft dirt and aside from a few scrapes the biggest bruise I had was on my ego.

It started on Wednesday. We had the ferrier out and Tex just gets his hooves filed. He's had a problem with people picking up his hind feet, but I thought we had worked through it. The ferrier is a well-known calf roper and has years of experience working with horses. As Tex is fidgeting around he says, if he yanks the foot awawy again, the best thing to do is to stand up and kick him in the belly. It's not has harsh as it seems. If you ever seen horses in a pasture, the dominant ones will kick at the other horses to get them to do what they want. There's no way the ferrier could kick Tex as hard as another horse could. Well, Tex pulled away again and the ferrier let him have it. Tex was definetly taken by surprise, but after that he stood still while the ferrier finished.

We didn't ride them until Friday because their feet can be a bit tender. Well, Friday night I can tell he's just got a bee up his butt. Don't know it was his feet, or he was stewing over the kick, or a different saddle. (Tex has been a bit stiff around the whithers and the ferrier suggested a different saddle. Since we had an extra, and old, saddle, I thought I'd use it.) When we took off, he was walking real slow and pretending to be afraid of the things we've walked by 50 times. We got out about a mile and I asked him to lope and he went in every direction except the one I wanted to go in. I should've just stopped right there. (looking back, I had many opportunities to stop) But, it had been a long week, I wanted to lope and, by golly, we were going to lope. I gave him the cue and he dropped his head and kicked up his behind. I can remember thinking, "Wow, that was a big one". It rock me out of the saddle, then he took off, then he stopped and bucked again. That's when I knew I was in trouble. The weird thing was I never said "whoa". I think he would've stopped. I never did a one-rein stop. I think he would've responded to that. I was frozen in the wondering "why" he was doing it instead of taking care of business and figuring out the "why" later.

After I hit the ground, he just stood there. Guess he figured he made his point. I got back on and we had a pretty uneventful ride the rest of the evening. I changed back to the old saddle for the Sunday ride and that too was uneventful. I did lope him but not very much. Think I'm going to have to get my confidence back up for that one.

2006-08-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

There was an article in today's local section about a man who was pleading with the city council to include cats in the animal control department. Granted, there are many stupid people who own or feed cats that do not have them fixed. This just makes more homeless cats. This guy said he's tired of the cats coming in his yard to kill birds and defecate on his lawn and garden. I don't blame him. I'm sure those cats are a pain in the butt. He says he's tried everything; red pepper, mothballs, etc.

Here's where we part company. He said, "The cats have defecated on my sprinkler heads on several occasions. This last time, the cat had diarrhea...If something like this were to occur in the future and the check valve on my sprinkler system were to fail, I could end up with E.coli." Really? E.coli?!? Come on buddy, I think you would have a greater chance at winning the lottery.

But wait. It gets even better. He goes on to say, "this could be considered domestic terrorism." WHAT?!?! He estimates his neighbor has 19 cats. They are just crazy, not terrorists. But what about him. The article says he weighed a pile of cat feces and estimated they produce 365 pounds a year. Who goes around weighing cat feces? He quates the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and says these cat owners might be considered as allowing discharges of untreated waste. Then he says feral cats threaten the existence of our county's endangered species like the blunt nosed leopard lizard.

Is it any wonder why our government is so fucked up? People quoting Federal law because they have a dispute about cats with their neighbors. He must be very frustrated. Having stray, wild cats running all over the neighborhood can't be much fun, but there has to be a better way to deal with it than to pass another law. People who feed and "rescue" cats are a strange and unreasonable bunch though. Many will spend dollars they don't have on food for stray cats that just go on to breed and make more cats they can't afford to feed or take care of.

Dog of Fertility

2006-08-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in passing, I dabble in ebay. It started when a customer mentioned they had some comic books they didn't want and didn't know what to do with them. I offered my ebay account, do the posting and take 10%. As it turned out the comic books weren't worth much. They just weren't old enough or rare enough.

I was dutifully putting them up though when our old business neighbor, Marty, came by. Marty had the antique store right next door. He moved away a couple of years ago, but he still stops by for a visit now and then. I told him what I was doing and how poorly it was going and he said, "I'll bring you some stuff to sell." Not that I really wanted to, but he offered to pay the fees and a 20% commission. I knew he woould have better stuff so, what the hell?

He brought me by a very nice vase and an "Elsie" the Borden cow creamer, and this signed Inuit piece of art. The print was labeled a "sealskin stencil", called "The Dog of Fertility". He said he had done some research and gave me the name and history of the piece. I did a little research on the names he gave me. Inuit art is pretty obscure. The artists' names are hard to read. This one was done in 1961 and he thought it might fetch a couple of hundred bucks. I did my best, took my pics and posted my auction.

I then did some more reading on the artist and realized this was some pretty cool art, very specialized, very primitive. Our print was marked one of 50 and it occurred to me that some art dealers might want to be aware this piece was on ebay. I did a search on Inuit art dealers and dropped six of them a one-line email about the auction. About an hour later I get a response back from one of the dealers that the piece was NOT done by the artist we had originally thought. There was a bid on it, so I called Marty and he said to email the bidder and ask if they wanted to retract the bid because of the mistake and I would re-list it correctly. But I did tell them that if they wanted to keep their bid that was okay too, as long as they knew I would revise the listing. They chose to keep their bid, it was at $75, and I made the necessary revisions Thanks to the kindness of the art dealer who wrote me back.

That original bid stood for 7 days. On the last day, about a half hour before the end of the auction, the price started to move. With four minutes left it shot up to $300. Yes! I kept hitting F5 to refresh my screen. Imagine my surprise, with 30 seconds left the price suddenly displayed $1,052 and then the last bid of $1,087. Marty was on the phone in a flash. His $200 piece of art sold for five times that amount! Needless to say it was a good afternoon.

2006-07-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

The heat is breaking slightly. I think it's only supposed to be 105 today. Like the rest of the country, it has been oppressive the last 10 days. The humidity finally dropped to and it feels for comfortable.

Ranae's job is going well. She seems to enjoy the new challenges though it's tough with the 8-5 grind. It's a bit quiet here. I've left Max at home because of the heat. He isn't happy about it, but I think he's more comfortable.

2006-07-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Taking Back Sunday is playing over at the arena. One of the girlfriends from group Subway came by earlier. She had an English accent. You could tell she wasn't from around these parts. Sounded like they were having a good time. They were just in Phoenix.

A group of kids just came by for some water. They're waiting outside to get good seats. They looked pretty hot. It's still at least an hour before they let them in I think.

2006-07-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

The AC guys came and installed a new unit in our tenant's building. There's just something "not right" about it being over a 100 degrees for like the tenth day in a row and we're buying them a new unit. Our evaporative cooler has it down to about 90 in here. Not bad if you sit in front of the fan. Ranae is at her new job working in air-conditioned comfort at about 82. When it's this hot it gets pretty slow here so I'm catching up on some reading.

2006-07-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

We saw Pirates over the weekend. It was great fun. Where did Johnny Depp learn to run like that? It makes me laugh just thinking about it. The credits are interminably (?) long, but there is a clip at the very end that ties to the movie, so sit through them.

Like the rest of the country is steamy here. It rained here this morning and now it's just lovely... We went for an 8 mile ride on Sunday. Had to get up at 6 to get rolling. It was worth it.

Ranae's first day on her job went well. She seems to like it. I can tell Mondays are going to be a bit hectic for me. The rest of the week shouldn't be too bad.

2006-07-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Lyle was a gas. He was part of a ten member band. It started with just him on stage doing a song, then a cello player came out for the second song, and then a mandolin (?)player for the third song. Then the rest of the guys came out one-by-one during the fourth song. Then four horn players and four backup singers. It was very cool.

The outside ampitheater was pretty good, the evening was warm, but not uncomfortable. Our seats were in the middle two third of the way up. The seats in front of us weren't sold and we had an excellent view of the performers. The sound and light systems were excellent. Lyle was very funny interacting with the audience.

This morning I look at his tour schedule. He was in Bakersfield last night(Friday). He's in Phoenix tonight and San Diego on Sunday. That's brutal.

2006-07-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Guess who has back stage passes to Lyle Lovett tonight? Not us, but we do have tickets. It's outside at 8 PM at the college ampitheater. I love outside concerts! Lyle is bringing his BIG band/orchestra. There are even supposed to be some gospel singers. I've never seen him before and I very excited. It is supposed to be 102 today. That's why they serve beer ;>)

2006-07-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

We played in the tennis tournament on Sunday morning. The heat wasn't too bad. We won our first round match and then had to play on Monday night at 7:30. It hadn't cooled off by much by then (it was 105 that day). We came back from being down 1-5 in the first set by winning six games in a row. We lost the second set in a tie-break. We could have fought on, but I looked over at Ranae and asked if she wanted to play a third set. We had been playing for 2 hours and, for us, because we hadn't prepared for this tournament at all, that was a lot. She said, "not really", so I feigned injury and we retired (giving them the win). It was fun, we just don't have that killer instinct when it comes to competition.

My kingdom for a MAC

2006-07-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Oh, how nice it would be to have a Mac (don't you love those new commercials with that kid from ED?). I tape(on cassette) the Loveline show during the week so I have something to listen to while I'm working around the house on Saturday and Sunday (yeah, I know, lame). Blue October played Hate Me live and it was awesome. Wow, I think, wouldn't it be great to digitally record it and add it to my library? There's probably some copyright thing, but I was just going to add it for my own personal use - it really sounded good. Sounds simple though I couldn't get my PC to cooperate. Crap. I'll save it for when I have another couple of hours to screw with it :>?

2006-07-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ranae came back from the interview yesterday afternoon. She said when the interviewer found out she had received five requests for interviews she hired her on the spot. She still has to go the a background check, but that should be no problem. Another department called today and wanted to hire her. We don't know she'll start. She was pretty stoked to get so many offers. I think the change will be good for us.

Tex went to the vet for his vacinations today. He's put on another 70lbs. He's putting on about 10 lbs a month. He behaved pretty good until it was time to get him in the trailer to come home which was a bit disappointing...

Sunday morning Ranae and I play in a tennis tournament. It's the first one in awhile. It should be fun.

cha cha cha changes

2006-07-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

Wow. Four posts in the month of June. You might have guessed changes are afoot around here. Instead of just posting as stuff happens it takes a bit of time to digest options and solutions. Sometimes posting problems before you've actually had a chance to think about things implies to the readers, as few as they might be, that I'm looking for their suggestions. Nope. Just posting 'cause laying it out helps me pocess everything (See Personality evaluation listed in archives).

It started about 2 months ago. We were talking about how slow business has been. Yeah, I know it's whining, but with the negative news stories on nutritional supplements, the hucksters on informercials, the Traitor Joes, Walmarts, Costcos, and the internet, we wonder if there is really room for a small business like ours anymore? And, if there's not, why keep doing it? I really believe in the free marketplace and if that marketplace says "You're not doing a good enough job of keeping our interest" then I've got to listen to it. We've put ourselves out there for the last two decades and most of our efforts have change the bottom line numbers very little.

So revenues are decreasing and costs are going up and it looks to coninue that way. Our health insurance, which we never use (I last saw a doctor in 1991), continues to go up and up. The equipment here is far beyond its useful life and it's only a matter of time and luck when a refir unit gives out. The AC man just left and says the building needs a new unit soon. What's that going to cost? Six grand? Eight grand? We don't want to just sit here and wither away.

Don't worry, we're not going to close. At least, we don't have any immediate plans to close, but there have to be some changes made. It's been a good run. A lot has changed in the years we've owned the store. People lives are busy. They want to shop for everything in one place. Can't blame them for that. The products we sell aren't unique (perhaps our information is). We don't have a government contract or insurance company that pays for our products. In fact, it's just the opposite, why should someone take a nutritional supplement when they can get their prescription for a $10 co-pay? We have to continually keep people interested in their own health. That's a thankless job.

Shortly after we discussed our options we were hanging around with the family. One brother is retired. Another gets like six weeks of vacation. A nephew who has a county job has four weeks of vacation and like 10 weeks of comp time. And here we are showing up everyday, six days a week with few exceptions for a long, long time. If it sounds like burnout to you, it probably is.

As we discussed our options, it's my wife who has a business degree. If anyone has a chance of getting a decent job, it's her. (Let this be a lesson to you kids - stay in school.) She applied for, what else, a government job. They're offering the best deal - easy hours, decent money, nice perks. She had to take a couple of tests and we she did well enough to get five interviews. She's on one now. We're both anxious to see if we have any marketable skills. She does, I know. And I think the gov't can't really discriminate against age. She working as a temp now, 4 hours a day, 4 days a week as an office manager in a local PR firm. I think she's enjoying the change of pace and the challenges of learning a new position.

It's closing time, gotta run.

2006-06-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

It was 105 on Saturday 109 yesterday and this morning lightening, thunder, and raindrops as fat as a New York City rat. I think the end is near people!

2006-06-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

NPR is running a series called This I Believe. This week's installment was an essay by Louden Wainwright. It was pretty good.

Big Project weekend

2006-06-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Our neon sign was looking pretty ratty. After getting quotes from sign companies to paint it, I decided to do it myself. It invloved getting a lift, buying the paint, and spending hours up in the air. The biggest expense was renting the lift and, as luck would have it, Ranae's cousin works for a rental company and said I could use one over the weekend. It arrived on Friday. I pressure washed the sign and almost all the old paint came off. Saturday I was up at 4am to get in a couple of hours of painting in before work. Then back up there Saturday afternoon until about 7:30.

I finished it up Sunday around 3pm. The moon is full and we wanted to try a night ride. Friday night I could've sworn the moon rose around 8:30 PM. Sunday night we took off a little before 7. We rode for an hour and a half and we're expecting to see the moon rise. It was a lovely evening, but the moon didn't show itself until 9:30. The weather here couldn't be more comfortable.

It's no Da Vinci Code

2006-06-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

but if you like puppet cinema and fart humor, check this out. A cute little story about a fart struggling to find "the wellspring of its stinkyness".

If you're going to Coachella, you so need this guy

2006-05-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Going to the music festival. Don't go unprepared. Check out the Coachella video here.

2006-05-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

We went to see the DaVinci Code on Thursday. We went with another couple. Three of us had read the book. They did a pretty good job of following the book, but as a stand alone movie, I think they missed the mark. We asked the one person who hadn't read the book if the movie was easy to follow and he just shook his head. Tom Hanks didn't do any real acting. He almost came off like a news correspondent. I think Ron Howard gave Tom the hair he always wanted.

The movie might have been too ambitious. Trying to tell a tale of intrigue and give a history lesson (framed in such a way as not to offend anyone) is quite a task. The aesthetics of the film were well done. I liked Geoff (Chaucer from A Knight's Tale) as the albino bad guy. There were a lot of chase scenes and in-between the pace seemed to slow a bit. If you read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie.

What's in a name

2006-05-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

Jerry's Pizza is a local place for aspiring young bands. A lot of somewhat famous bands have played there at some time. I have the schedule for the summertime concerts and the names are just plain fun to read. Job for a Cowboy, Cattle Decapitaion, Tony Danza Tapdance Extravangaza(sic), Lye By Mistake, Found in Blood, Suicice Silence, Makeshift Armada, Revolution Mother, Love Equals Death (ex-tsunami bomb, fat wreck chords)

2006-05-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Foghat, Foreigner, and Stepponwolf(?) are playing at the Sports Arena tonight. This venue is about a mile from our house as the crow flies. Check out the picture. All those buildings in the foreground are filled with chickens - thousands of chickens. That's the egg farm we've ridden by. Those chickens are going to be rockin' tonight. Bet egg production is down tomorrow. I may ride Tex over there an check out the concert on horseback.

What if the dam breaks...

2006-05-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

The Isabella Dam is number 2 on the list of Army Corp of Engineers list of most vulnerable dams. Don't know if these dam links will work.

Concern over Isabella Dam rises (3:11)

Isabella Dam's Failure

As it turns out we we would be right in the dam path of the of the raging waters.