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.