My parents are in town. I love my parents very much, but we are very different people. In their hearts they are good tolerant people, but I know they are uncomortable around gay people, so I wonder how they feel about staying at my house with three gay men.

I know my dad get's quiet when anything gayish pops up in the conversation.

Last night, our neighbour Ross came over for dinner. Ross and his partner live four houses down from RO and I, yet we rarely see them.

Ross is a train engineer. He told us that trains regularly run over people. We are in a bad stretch right now. In the last three months as many people of died from train accidents in our state as usually die in a year.

Many of them are suicides. Some of them are stupidity. If there are two sets tracks side by side people forget that trains don't always travel along the right track. He told us about a lady who put some pennies down on the right track, then stepped back to the left track where Ross promptly ran into her.

So, RO couldn't take all of Sunday off. He had to to open up the store and to fix up some displays.

RO and I met up for lunch. You could see that he was tired. Lunch started off nice, but both of us ended up with the runs.

So, it was a crappy day off. And then Boone called from the store. They had just finished a very large sale-- as much as we normally sell in five days. Within seconds I could feel my stress and tension fade away. It was like an instant vacation.

I didn't think I was that motivated by money, but knowing that July will probably be a strong month for the store helps.

RO and I are getting mentally tired,

Originally we planned on taking Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. Then a large vendor for the store shipped us three palates of furniture. We scheduled delivery for Wednesday, so that we could leave for our trip Wednesday afternoon.

Well, there were missed calls and miscommunication between the truck driver and our wharehouse. We didn't get the shipment. It took a day and a half of calling around to find out where our furniture was, and to reschedule delivery for Friday.

So, instead of a nice short vacation, RO and I had three days of stress.

We are going to take Sunday off.

Of course, the down side to owning a store is that there are quiet days. Very quiet days. The kind of days where you sell less than what you need to pay your bills. Although, we knew it would be quiet this week. Many people take vacation this week and we're not a vacation destination-- yet.

We did have three different couples from California drop by our store for a little gift shopping.

One of the fun parts of owning a store is that some of our customers are very interesting and I get to chat with them.

On Sunday a lady who is a medic for the U.S. Coast guard dropped in. She told us some of here tales of riding ice breakers up to the Arctic and down to the Antarctic. RO said he was jealous of her. The lady told him to not be. Yes, sometimes she experienced wonders that very few people will ever see. But, most of the time you are very bored. You can't get away from the ship or shipmates for weeks. And if there is an emergency, real help can be thousands of miles away.

I'm on vacation next week. Not a fully real vacation since I'll spend lots of time doing the books at the store. But, I'll get a few days off from my day job. Plus, RO and I can sneek away next Wed and Thurday-- two of our store's quieter days. We really need that. RO and I have only had a handful of days off since the store opened.

My mind is already leaving my job. I'm having problems focusing on anything but sunshine.

One of my co-workers is working on his doctorate of theology. I asked him about the Landmark Forum and Sandy. This is how he responded...

Wow -- I looked at their "syllabus." That may be the oddest combination of self-help and poststructuralism that I've ever seen. (Actually, the only such combination that I've seen; but it's still pretty odd.)

At seminary they teach us to be wary of giving advice -- we're supposed to operate on the assumption that most people already know the answers to their problems, they just might need some help drawing it out. In that spirit, I think your statements that you can't make your friend "normal" again (and I would agree with that; you can't "fix" people, they have to fix themselves) and that you don't want to just cut him loose, imply your answer: the third option is to put up with it.

At the risk of slipping into advice-giving, my experience suggests that there's a decent chance he'll get over it -- it sounds like right now he has the fervor of a new convert; that usually fades over time. And who knows, he might actually retain something valuable from it -- most of these programs have some good insights buried in all of the hype. If you ride it out, I think there's a good chance you'll get your friend back again. And if not... it was his choice, not yours.

Matt and Sandy have plit up. Matt spent last night at my place.

A couple of weeks ago, Sandy attended the Landmark Forum, a cultish organization that's is a descendant of EST. The forum radicly changed his personality. Before he was laid back and sweet. Now he's obnoxious. He says whatever he wants, even if it's rude, and then dismisses it all with "But I don't mean that as a judgement" Then, if you don't respond with respect, he accuses you of judging him and cuts the conversation off. Of course, we just don't get it, but we could if we attended that Landmark Forum.

Bleah. I wonder where this will go.

Last night RO and I watched "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." What a strange movie. Mostly art for art's sake. RO called it "Pink Floyd for Children." Afterwards we came up with a morel-of-the-story; don't break the rules, if you do, make sure you can cover your ass. Otherwise you won't win the lotery.

RO and I took Saturday off-- the first day we've had off in months. We went with Steven, Vic and some of their friends to the Freemont Solstice day parade. We had a blast. Freemont is an differnt place-- locals call Freemont the center of the universe. It's 60's hippy meets modern grunge, meets Seattle money.

Pics at rooktook

I'm starting to get tired. Having two full time jobs is wearing me down.

The stress at my day job is increasing. This fall we hope to finish a three year project. My manager has let out subtle hints like "If you ever wanted to work over time, now is the time to do it."

Then there is the store. The cash the store goes through is unsettling. Advertising works, but is expensive. All of our income goes to paying bills. We'd be in big trouble if anything went wrong. Our fixed monthly costs have grown way beyond what I can support.

Don't get me wrong, the store isn't going under-- so far sales in June have been excellent. But as RO said after he sold a expensive chandelier, "Yea! We can pay our bills!" Its frustrating to sell so many luxury goods, yet have no cash left to show for it.

To calm my nerves I think about "Black Friday" the day after Thanksgiving when most stores (supposedly) become profitibale.

I am still stiff and sore.

The truck trailer was 60 feet long and full of furniture. We hired six guys to help us and got it all unpacked in about two hours. Then, we spent the rest of the day unpacking and stacking everything.

We got the warehouse keys this morning. On our way to pick up the keys, the truck driver called ans said "I'm in Seattle. Can I drop off early?"

This was cutting it too close.

It's been a very stressful week. Last week, we thought we had a warehouse-- the landlord was going to finalize the lease all we had to do was sign and pay up. In anticipation of the warehouse, RO started the shipment on a transport truck full of furniture that had been waiting for the go ahead for about a month. The truck is going to arrive this Saturday.

Then the landlord just stopped talking to us.

So, Tuesday and Wednesday Mark and I busted our butts trying to find another warehouse before Saturday.

Fortunately, last night, the leasing agent called us and said he heard from the land lord-- death in the family. We are signing the lease today.

Weird nature moment... This morning while I was standing and peeing off the edge of the back deck a humming bird flew up to, well, my penis, and watched me pee. It felt weird to be stared down by a humming bird. Any other body part and that would have been a beautiful nature moment. After a few second the bird flew off.

Well, she quit. Or we helped her quit. Or something like that. On Saturday I met with her. She brought along a list of things that would allow her to continue working at the store. We talked for a while more and agreed to meet again on Sunday.

I took the list back to RO. The list was not outlandish, but not pratical either. We are a small company with a small budget. We can't bend over backwards to accomodate a part time employee. At the end of the day RO is the store. He is the best designer. He is the boss. He can be a hard-ass, but that's because he's the one responsible for the sucess of the store.

RO and I decide we could not give her that much flexibility. We also heard that she told some other employees that she was going to quit.

On Sunday I met with her again. I told her our decision and that I heard she was considering quiting. I said I supported that decision.

She asked for a letter of reference. I will give her one.

The other day I helped a guy who ran out of gas. A run down Bronko was stalled on the off ramp by my place.

I pulled over and asked the guy if he needed help. The driver was a big black guy. Yes, "Am I going to get mugged" thoughts ran through my brain. He told me he ran out of gas. I offered to drive him to the closest gas station.

The trip was uneventful. His name was Zak. He's a student from western washington. He thanked me a lot and then we parted ways.

We are having our first HR issues at the store. One of the employees is very senstative and takes everything personally. RO on the other hand, needs to get things done and he can't always handle the employees with kid gloves.

This is frustrating for RO and I. We both like her. But, we can't always and constatnly praise and reaffirm her. Sometimes we need the employees to do their job, and to not break out in tears if we try to correct a mistakes. (A $500.00 check wasn't signed. Candles which leave oil and fragrance were set on and stained an expensive wool rug. Medium sized vase left in the middle of walk way, where RO tripped on it.) I think we are dealing with her professionally, but I don't know how soft we need to go.

It's getting to the point where RO is uncomfortable around her, beause he's afraid that he's going to say something that will set her off.

May is turning into a tight month for the store. We half expected that-- tax returns are just starting to get back to people.

There has also been some construction outside the store. They blocked the street off on Saturday. Fortunatly the construction company was nice enough to put up a large reader lighted sign saying we were open.

It was a mixed weekend at the store.

The Good... On Saturday our employees showed us that they know the store better than we do... I was trying to find the price for some untagged merchandise. I asked SB if she know the price. She said "No, but we could look it up in the computer." When I went over to one of the computers SB said "Race Ya!" Within two seconds she found the price. I was still looking for the "Find Product" button.

The Good II. During the week, LP set aside some jewlery for a customer. LP had Saturday off. On Saturday, RO and Boone we trying to find the merchandise and couldn't. The followed LP's directions, but couldn't find the bag. RO and Boone started arguing with each other over who had misplaced the jewlery. SB got tired of their bickering so she took LP's directions and found the jewlery no problem. She opened up the cabinet and pulled a bag. She turned to RO and said "Is this it?" RO said no, but it was similar to that. SB turned back to the cabinet and pulled out another bag. "Is this it?" This time it was.

The Bad. On Sunday the closed the street in front of the store for repaving. It killed the day. You could only get to the store by parking far away and then walking. So, we closed early.

b-anne came over for dinner last night. A couple weeks ago she visited India for a vacation. She brought photos of the trip.

The thing that struck me the most is how colourful India is-- People dress in bright saturated colours every day.

Recently Bush has called himself "the Decider" I find it kind of funny that "A Decider" is "a machine that always halts"

Tommy Boy came is in Seattle for work. Friday night and Saturday night RO and I had dinner with him. We had a great time. We spent way too much on food, but we still had a great time.

I'm going to write more about dinners and the small fortune we paid for them. That will be posted on Eats

It was interesting and awkward explaining Tommy to RO. I've known Tommy for years and have met him in person once. So, when I told RO about Tommy, his guard went up. RO wasn't sure he could trust me, or what my intentions were. Was I lying? Was I being honest? Fortunatly things worked out well. Tommy and RO hit it off. Now we are planning to spend next Mardi Gras in Louisiana with Tommy and M.

Last night we went to the Muckelshoot Casino. S goes there every year to comemorate her dad's death. Her dad used to gamble a lot at the Muckelshoot.

We had a good dinner. Afterwards RO played some blackjack and S played the slots. I guess S's dad was with us in spirit because they both won about $30.00

Last night we went to the Muckelshoot Casino. S goes there every year to comemorate her dad's death. Her dad used to gamble a lot at the Muckelshoot.

We had a good dinner. Afterwards RO played some blackjack and S played the slots. I guess S's dad was with us in spirit because they both won about $30.00

Last night we went to the Muckelshoot Casino. S goes there every year to comemorate her dad's death. Her dad used to gamble a lot at the Muckelshoot.

We had a good dinner. Afterwards RO played some blackjack and S played the slots. I guess S's dad was with us in spirit because they both won about $30.00

Last night we went to the Muckelshoot Casino. S goes there every year to comemorate her dad's death. Her dad used to gamble a lot at the Muckelshoot.

We had a good dinner. Afterwards RO played some blackjack and S played the slots. I guess S's dad was with us in spirit because they both won about $30.00

It's not that I want to remain anonymous. I know I don't have that. Google Analytics tells me where my visitors come from, down to about the zip code. From what I see, many of my friends drop in from time to time.

My problem is that search engines work. If say "Luscious Breasts", for the next week or so my hit count will double thanks to all the people looking for said body part.

One third of the people who find the store's website get their by searching for it. If I mention the store directly on this blog, then a good portion of those people will stumble upon this blog. And I'm not sure I want my customers reading my blog.

> It would be good to know about ths shop in case I'd ever stop off in Canada on my
> way to .... the North Pole.

Lol. The store is South of Seattle. There is a link to off to the right, under the Links section. I don't like calling it out to much from this blog since people googling for the store would end up here.

I talked to Ryan today. He's burnt out of his job making video games. He's quit and is going to do some soul searching. He's thought about becomming a bartender, a mechanic, contractor and many other things.

We took out an ad in a big local newspaper. We mulled over it for a long time. The annual contract with the newspaper is big bucks-- as big as a new car. Black and white ads once a month are like Kia's. Color ads every week are BMW's.

Well, the ad works. It came out today and today is very busy. We know it's working because several of the customers have mentioned it.

We still need more people. We have one new guy helping in the back room. For the most part he's working out well. With one catch-- he sometimes smells. RO is going to have a chat with him.

I've been catching up on the books. We have an automated payroll system that automatically writes cheques out to the employees. It adds a copy of my signature to each cheque. It's weird seeing my signature on dozens of cheques that I never wrote. If I died or went away, I would live on in computers.

Today is the first day in the past two weeks that I don't feel bloated. Yeah!

Spring has hit Seattle. The birds are birds everywhere. Every morning RO and I have breakfast outside. In the past few days the number of birds is noticably greater.

All week RO and I have been a bit under the weather. We feel bloated and gassy. Bleah.

RO and I spent a long weekend at the Chrysalis Inn & Spa. It was our first time off since New Years day.

It was very relaxing. We ate a lot, hiked the around the hills, ate some more, got massaged, drank and slept. An almost perfect weekend.

Almost perfect because Monday evening, we ate some bad raw oysters. Today RO and I are a bit under the weather. I just need to drink lots of water to flush it out of the system.

Matt's grandmother is getting better.

Other than that, it was a busy weekend. I did manage to do a lot of organizing in the office.

Sunday night RO and I had dinner with Mac and Joe. It's the first time we've seen them since last fall. We had dinenr at CI Shenanigans in Tacoma. It's a great restaurant. It's on the water front and it's built with stadium seating so every table has a good view.

Mac and Joe are doing fine. They've both just switched jobs. Since they moved, their commute was about 90 minutes one way. At their new jobs the commute is down to 15 or 20 minutes.

Matt's grandmother is very sick-- pneumonia. The last time I saw here, last summer, she was a fit, sprightly, intelligent, active, 90yo woman.

Another busy weekend. Whenever I work at the store, I always bring a list of things that I must do. I always get distracted by things are more important.

This past weekend I wanted to catch up on the book keeping. Instead we got a shipment of 25 rugs. Rugs are big and heavey so the girls can't easily hang them from the rug rack. RO was very busy working on some furniture he promised a customer a month ago. That left me to deal with the rugs.

We need a one more strong guy at the store. So far all our applicantes and employees have been thin women. I don't want to be sexist, but when you have to move a metal and granite wine cage a thin woman isn't the most helpful.

Today RO is in Dallas shopping. He found a vendor that he really likes, so he's flown to their warehouse in Texas.

One nice benefit of the store is that we are getting thousands of air miles every month since we do most of the store buying with credit cards.

Everyone loves credit cards. They are faster and easier than cheque. Much less paperwork; credit card transactions automatically appear in the accounting software and in our bank account, unlike cash or cheques which require manual entry.

Back to the airmiles-- the store earns about one free roundtrip ticket a month. Right now RO and I aren't taking money out of the store so this is the only benefit that we have.

RO and I are trying to exercise again. We jogged this morning. We made it half as far as we used to before we needed to stop and walk.

I try to do the books for the store. Even though most of it is automated, book keeping is a lot of work. Fortunatly the most important expenses like pay roll and paying sales tax are completly automated.

The bank statments and credit cards are mostly automated. We can download import them into the Accounting Package. The hard part is matching the transactions up to receipts. That's a lot of tedious work.

The book keepers that we talked to wanted to charge us a couple thousand a month to keep our books. Now I understand why.

The robins are back. This morning while RO and I were in the hot tub, a robin was in a nearby tree calling out to others. It would whistle loudly. A few seconds later other nearby robins would whistle back. The calls sound fairly far away. One robin is accross the ravine and another is a few house down.

How do you forget valentines day? Well, his argument is that he had a really elaborite valentines day gift planned. Then he got too busy to follow through.

He knows I don't want to receive flowers at work, so he was either going to have some roses sent to everyone around me, but not me. Then at a particular time, each of my co-workers would give me a rose.

Last night RO and I took Neu to see Dan Savages's Valentines Day Bash. At the Bash, you bring a momento of a failed relationship. Dan calls you up to the stage, you talk about the failed relationship in front of the audience, and then Dan destroys the momento-- burn, blend, smash, rip it up and flush it down a toilet and so on.

It was fun, though we left early. There were too many paper momentos. In past years people have destroyed wedding rings and other valuables. This year it was mostly photos and love letters.

When we got home, RO opened my valentine's day card to him. I opened my valentines day card and... RO didn't send the card to me! One of the store employees sent me the card. RO forgot valentines day! We argued over it for a bit and went to bed in a huff. At about 3am in the morning he apologized. That felt good.

The store's grand opening sale was on Saturday. Even though we've been soft open since mid December, we didn't start advertising till now.

RO created a big event for the sale. We rented hollywood search lights. We catered. We had a stagered sale. 10% off from 10am to 1pm. 20% of from 1pm to 5pm. 30% of from 5pm to 7pm, and 40% off after 7pm.

The customers worked hard to get things at 40% off. Before 7pm, one lady went around the store and hid the items she wanted under scarves.

It was very busy before 7pm. After that it was was a mad house. We were wrapping and ringing non-stop till 10pm. The small stuff was easy. Quickly packing the big stuff, chairs, book shelves, paintings and other art, was back breaking work.

That night I could only dream of bubble wrap and price checking.

It's a big load off my chest that the store will be successful. Still, this isn't easy money We are working hard for our dollars.

So, for four days the kitchen drain was blocked. Every evening RO and I would go to Home Depot and buy another drain clearing tool. We poured chemicals and hot water down it. We plunged it so vigorously that the seals broke and the joints started leaking. We shoved a twenty five foot drain snake down it. We spent hours on it. No luck.

RO finally let me call Roto-Router. At 8:30am the plumber showed up. By 9am he had cleared the clog and rebuilt the plumbing that we had destroyed.

We are having bad drain karma. The kitchen drain has been plugged for the past three days. Every night we buy another drain clearning gadget and spend an hour trying to free things up. If we don't clear it up tonight, then I'm going to call the plumber.

I wanted to call the plumber yesterday. RO is too stubborn. I know he wants to save a some bucks. But there is something to be said about having a working dishwasher and sink.

I just heard from Bib for the first time since he got back from Australia. He said he had a great time down under.

On the way back, the jet tire blew out. He said they heard the bang at the tail end of the take off. So, the pilot didn't abort.

They made an emergency stop in SFO. Fortunatly they landed safely.

Last night, Matt, Sandy, Steven, RO and I had dinner at the Blackbird Bistro. Nice restaurant.

We spent most of the evening mulling over Steven and Vic's situation. They are very much in love (and married) but they live 5 hours apart. It's difficult for Vic to move to the U.S. and Steven would take a big pay cut if he moved to Canada.

Last night RO and I went over to Matt and Sandy's and watched Die Mommei Die! It's a bad movie-- they tried hard to make it bad. Some of the dialog is so awful you know the writers worked hard to go there.

C2 has now spent almost a year in Iraq. I got this note from him...

How are you doing? Things here are fine, but sorta the same-ole-same-sole. I think I've topped out here at Tallil and need to move to Baghdad to find the next round of adventure/change. How do you like doing the work thing and store thing? Is it too much? Have you started paying yourself back yet? Ok, chat you soon.

C2 is in no hurry to come back to Seattle. He has many alergies when he's in Seattle. They clear up in Iraq. In Iraq he has a full time job that he kind of likes and earns him some respect. Back in Seattle he wasn't doing much more than temping.

I'm glad he's found something he likes. It's just too bad that our paths are diverging.

Over the weekend, RO and I went to a trade show, the Seattle Gift Show, to buy for the store. It was a lot of work. There were acres and acres of pottery vendors, art vendors, furniture vendors, jewelry vendors, candle vendors, clothing vendors. It went on and on and on. We spend two days there.

I am not a buyer at heart. My eyes glazed over by the time I saw my one hundredth vase. Thankfully RO knows what he's looking for, so I handled the paper work while he was shopping.

We met a rug importer who later stopped by the store to check us out. This vendor sells $10,000.00 rugs. He was impressed by our store and has offered to sell rugs through us on consignment, which is very nice because we can't afford to keep many $10,000.00 rugs in stock.

RO and Boone are now headed down to Las Vegas for a furniture show. I kind of wish I was there. Although the thought of another two days of buying kind of bores me.

I'll stick with running the store.

The store is next to a tourist area. Near by there are many little boutiques and gifts shops. Our store having an effect on the neighborhood.

The restaurants and the stores with different merchandise like us. We are the biggest and splashiest place on the block so they benefit by the extra foot traffic.

One boutique, unfortunately, carries similar merchandise as our store. They are suffering. The owner hates us-- she said so to some of our vendors. I really don't want to brush it off with "It's just business and in business you compete." But, at the same time there is little else I can do. Our store is probably five times larger than her's, with ten times the selection. She has a narrow alley, while we have a 5000 square foot building.

Last night we had dinner at Sally's.

Sally and her husband built my house back in the 1950's. They lived there for decades. After her husband died, she bought a smaller house 4 lots over.

Well, Sally is 80 now. And she doens't look a day older than 60. She's fit, smart, active and attractive. I hope I'm half as alive as she is when I turn 70.

We try to have dinner with Sally regularly. She loves the company and likes to keep tabs on her old home. Last night she gave us 4 old photos of my place, dating back to the 50's.

I think I'll blow them up, frame them and give Sally a copy.

The sewer at the store is all fixed up.

Saturday night, RO, Steven and I went out for dinner at Blu Sea Sushi. It's a fun conveyer belt sushi restaurant with a nice martini bar.

Steven really liked the bartender. So, RO looked at the bartender and shouted "Hey! Are you straight?" Steven and I broke out laughing. When RO gets tipsy, he gets loud.

After Sushi, we went to C.C.'s for a couple of more drinks. RO got even more obnoxious. I decided to just let him get it out of his system. We've been working so hard, that he needs to blow off some steam.

Next day, no hangovers!

Sunday night we had dinner at Matt and Sandy's. It was a great dinner. It was nice to site down with friends.

The store is doing fine. Over the weekend, we composed our first newspaper ad. We'll see how it looks in print.

It's one of those days. The sewer line at the store is blocked up. The plumber can't find the blockage. Right now they are flushing the sewer line out so they can push a small video camera into it.

Last night RO and I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's a good movie, though I have some complaints with the story-- too much magic. Magic and the kids are in trouble. Some more magic and the kids are safe. Bad magic and someone dies. Good magic-- he comes back to life. More magic and the day is saved.

The magic feels like C.S. Lewis cheated with the story, which is disappointing because the rest of the movie (and book) are so well put together.

After the movie I got to meet Randy Hansen Randy is a friend of RO's who has had some success as a professional guitarist and a Jimmy Hendrix impersonator.

Last night Steven came over and joined us for our first machine dinner. Between the store and my job, we don't have enough time or energy to make good dinners. So, we got a crock pot and a bread machine. By 7pm both were finished, so all we had to do was sit down and enjoy our meal.

Steven is still overwhelmed with work. What is it about workoholism and my friends? I guess it's better than hanging out with slackers.

The store is going well. January may be a better month than December.

Over the weekend, I spent most of my time in the back room cleaning and organizing. I bought half a dozen rolling racks and we got all the crap off the floor and onto the shelves.

For the first time since we opened, our garbage is under control. I did three garbage runs. Much of the cardboard in our garbage area had started to rot away. I used a fork and shovel to get it into the truck bed.

The thing I miss most of my life before the store is the absence of enough. I used to be able to read, or watch TV, or sit in the hot tub, or hang out with friends until I had enough. There was still time left over for house work. Now my days are full. I still have my old full time job. The store takes up whatever free time is left over.

I think we have enough employees a the store that RO and Boone can start taking days off. In fact, Boone took Sunday off. We are going to try and schedule things so that RO can take Monday or Tuesday off, however I'm not sure he will. He'll probably do the buying or consulting on those days.

Me... Well Between my fulltime job and the store, I'm working seven days a week.

Although, Saturday night RO and I saw Brokeback Mountain with Steven and Vic. Brokemback Mountain is a good movie, but not the great movie I'd heard it was. I enjoyed it, but I'm in no hurry to see it again.

I'm back in Seattle and working hard. Between my day job and the store, I don't get much free time. We need to hire another full time person for the store-- RO is stretched very thin. But, that's a big commitment.

It's 3am in the morning. I am still in Phily. There is no one at the airport but the clean staff and a few straglers like me.

The cleaning staff spends most of their time joy riding the electric cars or sitting around and gabbing.

I want to sleep but can't. The one man who is actually working is running a loud floor buffer near me.

I still haven't found my camera.

The bank of pay phones next to me has started ringing randomly. It's kind of wierd. I picked up one of the ringing phones and no one was there. Then, the phone next to me started ringing.

I am stuck in Philidelphia. I was flying back from Toronto with a connecting flight in Phili. The flight from TO was delayed and I missed the connector. Right now they have me booked on the next flight to Seattle. That's not till the morning.

To make matters worse, while I was rushing around the airport I lost my camera. It had all my XMas pics on it. I feel bad about that.

Right now I'm in Pembroke, my home town. The weather is just below freezing-- very pleasent for late December. When I told RO the temperature, he was shocked at how cold it was and repeatedly told me to stay warm and not get sick. RO was born and raised around Seattle so freezing temperatures are alien to him.

The store is doing well. We earned enough to pay our bills. Not bad for only being open for three weeks.

Christmas, RO and I spend a quiet day together. It was the first time we had a day off since Thanksgiving. We cleaned the house, sat in the hot tub, ate, visited friends and slept.

Today I flew to Toronto. I had a great flight over. As luck would have it, an old friend was the head steward. When he saw me he said "Barry! Long time now see. Let me take care of you. Go sit in 4C. And so I had 1st class service all the way.

Running a store is interesting. It's so different from my day job as an engineer. The two jobs stress my brain in different ways.

The store is developing a routine, though we still have a long way to go. It sounds like I'm the easy boss, and RO is the hard boss. Yesterday, RO needed some supplies for the front desk, but couldn't find them. He asked one of the girls (We employ three highschool girls) to look for it.

We looked together but couldn't find the supplies. I asked her to tell RO. She asked me "Can you do that? He'll yell at me."

We had a small Christmas Party at the store. About thirty people showed up. It was fun.

We had a white elephant gift exchange. It was fairly fun, but went on way too long. RO was a bit drunk and tried to rule the proceedings. But, you really can't get 30 drinking adults all be quiet and act professional.

Boone drank a lot and got sick-- he doesn't usually drink. I could tell he was on the verge of puking when he got into my truck for the ride home. I kept my eye on him all the way. As we pulling along side home, while I was still driving, he opened the door and proceeded to unload.

RO and I have been working almost non-stop. I have my day job, plus the store needs lots of attention.

We haven't caught up with the book keeping yet. I'm trying to do that, but accounting it's a lot of work. The accounting software doesn't let you correct mistakes. You have to enter another transaction to document the correction. Many of my first entries are things like "#4: Transaction #3 should be a debit and not a credit." "#5 Transaction #4 should be $3.00 not $0.03" and so on.

Saturday night we went to an X-Mas party at some neighbors. They had a white elephant gift swap. It worked out well. I ended up getting a great framed photo.

Last night an old friend told me that Tori died. Tori and I went to University together. We weren't close friends, but we did hang with the same crowd. Tori was a very ambitious and intelligent woman. The long story is under Kayak outing in Mexico turns tragic


In short, Tori and 2 friends were in Mexico, Kayaking between two islands in the Sea of Cortez. A suprize wind sqaul hit them, generating nine foot waves. The three tried to stay together, but Tori was ripped away. At 5pm an American yatch picked up the 2 friends. The yatch had radio contact with Tori. She was frustrated trying to give the searchers here location, but couldn't get sightings because the waves were so high. At 8:30 Tori made her last contact, saying she was cold. Her body was recovered Monday Morning.

The policy are running a speed trap outside my window. Every few minutes the sirens go on and they pull over another car.

It's snowing. Nice big flakes.

Where I work, there are two distinct groups of people-- those who grew up with snow and those who didn't. Those who did not grow up with snow are looking out the window, worrying about the drive home and thinking of leaving early. Those who grew up with snow are rolling their eyes and saying "It's just snow."

I grew up in Eastern Ontario, Canada. It really snows there.

I've been working a lot again. I have my day job. Then I drive to the store and help RO set up. He's hired three extra people to help him. On top of that, another three or four of our friends show up to assist. Thanks to everyone!

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.

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!

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."

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Busy weekend. Friday night RO and I celebrated our new company by touring the resaurants of downtown Renton. RO and I have fingured out why downtown Renton has soo many great restaurants. Two men, Gino and Armondo, or opening up different restaurants. The cheap lease rates mean these men can hire better chefs and spend more money on the ingredients and staff.

Saturday we went to see the Tiffany exhibit at the SAM. In the evening we went to a halloween party thrown by one of RO's friends.

Sunday we drove down to Gig Harbor to see Mac and Joe's new home. It's a very nice place. Private-- on 2 acres. I like it.

Sunday evening we went to a co-workers wedding. RO danced with many of the women. He's a charmer.

Last night RO and I went out to Olivers for Martini Monday. Martini Monday is 'tradition' just started by Rebecca since she was dumped by her boyfriend and wanted something fun to do on Monday.

It was fun evening, though I drank too much. Martini's are a drinking man's drink.

Side note-- this blog is now five years old! In Internet years, that's ancient.

Maui pics

We are back from Maui. It was a good trip with a few colourful exceptions.

Matt and Sandy arrived Friday night. RO and I arrived Saturday evening.

First colourful exception... Sandy really wanted pot. He's had bad experiences with buying pot on Maui-- he's ended up with oregano before. To make sure he got some good pot, Sandy scoped out the guys on the beach, and befriended this stoner named Soliel.

Soliel was the hippy child of hippy parents. He was basically homeless, living on the beach and off the kindness of strangers. He was about 30 years old, care free-- a simple happy stoner who didn't know any better.

He was also kind of creepy. When RO first met Soliel, he hid anything valuable. He didn't want to give Soliel any ideas.

Soliel pulled out a nail clipper still in the package. He said he lifted it from the corner store next to us. He was very proud of himself.

Soliel sat next to me on the sofa. He pulled his shorts out and then said "That's not good!" He turned to me and continued "I haven't had a shower in 3 days. The salt and sand are bugging my foreskin."

While we were talking about dinner, Soliel pulled some Bologna and chips out of his nap sack. He got a plate. He carefully fooled the Bologna and and made a nice presentation with the chips. As thoughtful as it was, we didn't eat the chips and Bologna. We didn't know where it came from or how long it was in his knapsack.

The evening went on like that. Soliel never realized how strange he came across as.

Eventually RO, Matt and I wanted dinner, but Sandy still didn't have his pot. Sandy kept asking us to wait a few more minutes. An hour later we left Sandy with Soliel and went to Stela Blues (Great restaurant)

We called Sandy a few times while we were eating. Sandy told us that he had drove Soliel to the dealer's house and gave Soliel some cash to go buy the pot. The only reason he knew that Soliel would come back was that Soliel had left his knap sack in Sandy's car.

And hour later Sandy was still waiting for Soliel.

An hour after that Sandy got his pot.

Sandy said that on the way home, Soliel was acting very weird. He couldn't handle highway speeds and kept yelling at Sandy to slow down. Finally Sandy managed dropped Soliel off where he wanted and gave him some cash.

When we finally met up with Sandy, he was being very self-richous. He kept saying "Do you know all the trouble I had to go through to get us that pot! You should support me!" We didn't really want the pot so we all gave Sandy the finger.

We spent Sunday at little Mecena beach. Very beautiful. Every Sunday at sundown a drum circle forms or little Mecena. It was an great party.

Monday we drove to Hana. The road to Hana is very twisty, with lots of one lane bridges and blind corners. It has some beautiful scenery.

In Hana we hung around Red Sand beach. It's a very pristine and quiet beach.

We spend the rest of the time snorkeling and swimming at the various beaches.

Thursday morning we got up at 3am drove to the top of Haleacala, a dormant volcano. We watched the sun rise.

After that we drove back to red sand beach at Hana. A seal was sunny herself on the beach. RO laid down, about 20 feet away from the seal. Later on he told me that if you sang to the seal, it would close it's eyes and stop being so suspicious of every sound.

Before we left on Saturday, we ran into Soliel again. We gave him some leftover beer and snacks.

The trip home was uneventful. I'll post the pictures soon.

The lease is signed and notarized.

RO & I are about to head off Hawaii for a week. Sandy's dad had a time share in Maui that he couldn't use. i will have fun on vacation knowing that we have a store.

We still haven't signed the lease. We almost did, but our laywer wanted to correct a few incosistancies-- no substantial changes, we just wanted to put the changes we had agreeded to verbally into writing.

When we presented the new lease to the agent, they got very annoyed. I'm not sure why. Maybe they think we don't trust them because we had it reviewed and altered by a good lawyer. Maybe they think we are trying to hide something from them.

The end result is that we still don't have a lease. This is stressfull. A lot of inventory scheduled to arrive and it has no place to go and no store to be sold in.

Over night RO and I talked about a few things we could do to help the process along. He's talking to the agent today. I still have a day job, so I just can't go down there and negotiate.

RO and I just got back from the lawyer-- we are forming a corporation to run the business under. It's a little nerve racking. It's amazing how fast we are going through cash and we haven't even opened. No one expense is unreasonable, but there are dozens of expenses.

Right now RO and I are figuring out how to structure the shares. It's fairly simple if RO and I are (and stay) the only owners. Things get much more complicated if we take on other partners. It hard to figure out what's fair. What happens if RO and I split? Should the investors loan us money? Should we let them buy shares? How do they get their money out? How much control do we retain?

Right now I'm the president. So I get to sign my name "Brain Dump, President of Corporation."

Last night the gays of Newcastle got together for a dinner party. The hosts have a beautiful house on the high on the hill.

In a weird co-incidence, over a year and a half ago, before RO and I were a couple, RO had a threesome with the hosts and left his watch behind. Last night the hosts pulled out the watch and handed it back to RO.

Vic and Steven are back from Bali and Hong Kong. Even though they were close to the bombings, they had a great time.

So RO and I are taking a big step together--we are opening a home design/decore store. It's a big leap of faith. RO knows what he is doing though. He has been a designer for years and has run his own store before. The risk is that my pockets are deeper than RO's. I'll be paying most of the bills until things are up and running. And there are big bills-- rent is $5000.00 a month.

There is a lot of work to do. We want to open by Dec 1 to hit Christmas. RO is on the phone constantly to line up the vendors.

Steven and Vic are in Bali. They were about a block and a half away from the bombings. They are ok, but shaken. I got this email from Steven.

We are fine. I hope you got my other email. We were right where this happened today. Very scary. Just wanted to let you know we are ok. We are a bit a ways from this but like I said we were shopping right there today. We were at Hard Rock for lunch and at pool all afternoon.
Very close call. Makes me sick to my stomach. Villa and hotel is great and we are fine.

Hugs,

Steven and Vic

Steven and Vic are on their way to Bali via Hong Kong. He writes...

Just thought we would reach out. We have some time to burn in Hong Kong while we await the next flight to Bali. We have been in travel now for about 28 hours. WOW! Seems like less since we were able to sleep much of the night. We slepts about 10 hours! We have not stopped eating of course. The business class service. Wow. The little asian ladies I want to bring home. They are not only beautiful but so nice and just treated us so nice. amazing. This airport itself is amazing. Large, spacious and not at all what I would have thought. The walk ways large and spacious and of couse enough Prada and gucci shopping to burn any wallet up! The business class lounge is amazing. Beautiful simple elegance. There is a water feature pond next to where I am now. We have been in the noodle bar and will soon partake in the "long Bar" which spans across the front of the lounge with Views over the airpot and bay of Hong Kong. Amazing. The showers were something out of the W hotel in New York for sure. Huge rain shower heads above and even a little magic wand that makes for a very clean little (YOU KNOW WHAT). HE HE! You know me..gotta give the details.

Vic and I compared notes later and funny...he said the same thing about the magic wand. We both think we might need one. HA! Why is there not one in the steam shower is what I want to know.

Today I drove in with a co-worker. His native language is not English.

He told me that while he was learning English, the first time he saw "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." on a passenger-side mirror he thought it meant "The components used to make this mirror are much more densely packed than you would expect."

Yesterday was William's 45th birthday. Who is William? He's my other roommate. He's very quiet. He doesn't work. He doesn't pay me rent. He helps around the house. He does odd jobs to earn some cash. He plays piano and has performed at weddings and bars.

Other than that, he's just there. He watches TV. He hangs out with friends. He cleans up after himself. He rarely dates. I've never known him to have a boyfriend.

Maybe he's going through a mid life crisis. It's just odd to see a man so free of goals and ambition.

Saturday night RO and I went to a great party. Rebecca, who use to be my boss, invited us to it.

What made the party so great? The hostess was a wild child.

Working backwards... At the end of the night, everyone was dancing samba, salso and tango around the living room. There were a few great dancers there and they gave the rest of us lessons. Rebecca and RO did an agressive tango. They would swing aground and check other dancers onto the couch.

Before that, I noticed that some of the guests were vanishing for long periods of time. When I went looking for them-- they were on the back patio smoking pot.

Before that. This one is the hardest to describe. The hostess would run her teeth over the bone behind your ear. It tickled gave you the shivers. It first happened to RO and T. There were sitting there giggling like they had a secret. They wouldn't tell us what it was. They just said "Go to the back room and find out."

So I did. And it happened. It was so weird having a stranger do that to me.

Later on RO and I sat on either side of the hostess. RO and I started to do the same thing to here that she did to us. She started laving and shaking so much that she broke my wine glass.

It was a great party.

The black berry wine is off to a good start. It's bubbling away in the primary fermenter. It smells good, better than the grape wines.

Tommy Boy is safe and sound. He's been away for a couple of weeks thanks to Hurricane Katrina. I knew he was safe, his friend told me so the couple of times that I called him. But still, I hadn't heard from him.

RO and I went to the Boeing surplus store over the weekend. Boeing surplus is surreal. There are endless bins of oddities that you'd never realize were needed to build jets.

You can buy old laptops computers by the pallet. Bins and bins of drill bits, some of the 2 or 3 inches thick, large aluminum sheets, reemers, sonofiers (what the heck is a sonofier?) casters, instructional videos, hand carts, binders and much much more.

Some of their old desks and drafting tables look like a bureaucracy gone haywire. They had a desk on hydraulics that could turn anyway. Another desk had a precision magnifying glass attached.

I didn't buy anything. But, it is a junk collectors paradise.

Had a maintenance weekend. RO and I did chores around the house. Mowed the lawn, moved furniture, cleaned out gutters.

Saturday night we watched Nine Dead Gay Guys. It's not bad for a corny gay comedy. It's very amorale. I think it tries to mock movies that have a moral-of-the-story. At the end there is a moment where the characters realize that it's possible to have sex because you love someone, not because you are paying them, or you are in a dark room.

Today RO and I started a batch of black berry wine. We'll see how that turns out. We picked all the berries our self. This will be the first wine we did, from start to end, without a kit.

The bugs...

Last weekend when we were driving back from Wenathee we drove through a large cloud of bugs.

At first it was gross-- six or seven bugs quickly splatted on the windshield. Then it was kind of funny and weird-- more bugs kept colliding with the windshield. After a minute of bug death, it stopped being funny and was just creapy. How many bugs where there? How long before they stopped hitting the truck? Has anyone ever had an accident because they couldn't see through bug crud?

It stopped after about 5 minutes. I tried to clean the bugs off with the wipers, but they just smeard the bugs.

Steven has moved out. He's got a great townhouse over in West Seattle. I'll miss him. He was a great room mate and a better friend.

He's already jokingly asked me when I was moving to West Seattle. It would be nice-- West Seattle is a better place to live than where I live, Renton. West Seattle has many great restaurants and stores within walking distance. Renton-- you drive everywhere. West Seattle has Alki Beach

As nice as West Seattle is, you pay for it. My commute would be over an hour one way. Real-estate prices in West Seattle are sky high. And as nice as Alki Beach or the clubs and restaurants are, I wouldn't use them every day. Instead, I can drive to them regularly when I go and visit my best friend at his great now townhouse.