Monday, November 28, 2005

Last week we worked hard on the store. It's not open yet, but we are close. Most of the inventory is in. The POS (Point of Sale) system is up and running. The display walls are finished. We just need to receive some final inventory,put the trim on the walls, and display everything.

That is still a lot of work.

Monday, November 21, 2005

RO's big day.

Sunday was RO's 41st birthday. On his birthday...

he was outed to my mother. My parents know I am gay, but are in very deep denial about it. I thought they new RO and I were together. Hell.. when my parents spent a week at my house, RO slept every night in my room. Yet my parents didn't realize we were dating. Sunday when I was talking to my mother, I mentioned something, I don't even know what I said, but my mother finally put 2 and 2 together and figured out that I'm really gay, and not pretend-gay-but-someday-I'll-find-the-right-woman. RO was very happy when he heard that.

he accidently put his leg through the ceiling of the store while running cable along it.

he bruise his head in the process

he cursed loudly and non-stop for 15 minutes afterwards.

RO isn't out to his family yet. Sunday His sister showed up at the stare and is now wondering who I am and who his friends are. He does this wonderful song and dance to keep us apart.

We celebrated his birtday at a restaurant nextdoor to us. Some of the gang used their camera phones to send pictures of their genitalia to RO.

It took a long time to get our bill. Because of that RO had words with the manager. The manager kicked him out and told him to never return!

Happy Birthday RO!

Thursday, November 17, 2005

This morning at the store, RO was unloading his car and left his jacket and travel mug outside the door. Two kids picked up the jacket, threw the mug, found the keys and stole the car.

Two city workers saw the kids throw the mug and drive off. They ran into the store and told RO what happened. RO immediatly called 911.

The police stopped the car within a mile. No damage. Nothing lost.

Whew.

Later on the city workers said they only knew something was weird because the kids threw the travel mug. The kids would have got away if they were more subdued.

I've got mixed feelings about this. On one hand I love it that the police were so responsive. On the other, I'm worried that the store is not in the best of neighborhoods. The neighborhood is definitly on the upswing. But the less desirable elements are still around.

After RO got the car back, he found a lap top and a cell phone in it. The lap top came from a mortgage broker just down the street. RO thinks the cell phone belongs to one of the theives. As he put it, "The phone is full of Ebonics names."

Monday, November 14, 2005

We are doing so much that everything is starting to blur. For a while on Sunday I completely forgot what I did on Saturday.

The store is comming along, though slowly. We are having a problem getting signs. None of the sign people will give us estimates. On the good side, we found a metal artist who may make us a metal sign for much less than a sign company.

I decided to stick an advert on the side of my blog-- mostly to get stats. Google can tell me a bit about my readers. The ad's are supposed to be related to my blog's content. Right now, since my blog is called "Brain Dump" I'm seeing many ads for dump trucks and heavy equipment.

Sigh.

Friday, November 11, 2005

One of the downsides of running a small business is that I have to sign many things that I don't always understand.

I had to sign at least 6 times to setup payroll and accounting with my Bank. I'm not 100% sure to exactly what I agreed to. It include 6 pages of densly typed text and gave the bank a limited power of attourny so that they can pay taxes and receive IRS info on my behalf.

Sigh.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

It's amazing how much effort the new company is talking-- in time and in organizational skills. In the past month I have aquired dozens off vendor accounts, cards and passwords. I have problems remembering them all.

And inventory-- just because you buy furniture that's one piece doesn't mean it's arrived at the store that way. The vendors send you the bulk of the funiture in one shipment, the molding in another (cause it's from a different manufacturer) and the screws in a third. Even with a computer, managing inventory is tricky.

Monday, November 07, 2005

One of the downsides of opening a business together is that RO and I have started arguing more. I'm not always in the right, but two times last weekend, I had "I-was-right-you-we-wrong" moments.

RO and I were hauling some furniture in a trailer behind my truck. He wanted me to move into the HOV lane because our truck had two people. I said trucks with trailers couldn't use the HOV lane. We argued about it. RO called 911 to ask a cop if trucks with trailers could use the HOV lane. Of course the cop said "No."

Saturday night we were making pasta together. Some pasta was coming out blobby and broken. He added more water to the pasta. I said the problem was that the pasta was too wet. RO disagreed and added even more water, insisting the pasta was too dry. Of course the problem got worse. When I added more flour the problem went away.

Now, I recognize that always being right in an argument is not good for our relationship. At the same time, if I know I'm right, it's hard for me to give ground. It just feels spineless to be neutral or to agree with RO just because we live together.

What say yea?

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

RO, Steven and I had dinner last night at the 611 Supreme.

Steve is under a lot of stress right now. His partner Vic who is in the Navy, is away on tour for at least a month.

Plus, his brother and a close friend are having Meth problems. His brother, who is off meth, is having a crazy spell and accusing Steven of lots of weird shit. Steven is tired of this and is cutting his brother out of his life.

The close friend is still on meth. His health is failing. He had a stroke. He's losing weight. About a week ago Steven was talking to the friend over the phone. The friend just stopped talking.

Steven contacted the friend's family and they are planning an intervention.

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