It is raining heavily, so I worked a little more on the books. Yes, of course, I have some wry or witty observations. The book “So You Want to be a Doctor” is the same size, shape and series as “So You Want to be a Nurse”. It costs twice as much. Um, if it is true coins go up in value with age, how come last years coin books don’t do as well? I left that book on Memory Mastery around here somewhere. “Writing Bestsellers” sold seven copies last year. Leave me alone, I’m having fun.
JP didn’t show. I took his Boss Cruiser out momentarily to check the tire inflation and easily hit 20 mph. It is a serious bicycle that makes my one-speed look like a toy, although a toy I put 12 miles per day on. The bike that gets used is worth many times the others. Just maybe I finally found the elusive F: drive on this computer. JP’s Vivitar camera. My software spots it as a “USB Mass Storage Device”. I went to the beach anyway.
He said he was sorry. The goof who made me slam on my brakes as he nosed half a car-length over the sidewalk onto a one-way. So what, happens all the time? Yes. Only this time I had found a huge Igloo camp cooler in nearly perfect condition. It must have fallen off somebody’s truck. I strapped it to my carrier and went on to the beach and 9/10ths of the way back home when he cut me off. The Igloo fell onto the pavement and bounced twice. Breaking both the latch and the hinges, the only two breakable parts.
Sigh. He had that Florida goof-stupid look to him, so of course, saying sorry gets him off the hook. They hide behind saying sorry in this area. I know it looks off balance on the bike but trust me, these are well made and very light. I stopped at HWB and offered it to Barry and Jayson but they don’t need the big model. After the predictable series of jokes that the G had found it first (no beer inside), I brought it home to serve as my hurricane backup. I don’t really need a cooler to survive but it is a treat.
Again, the first thing every visitor to Florida notices is the utter lack of single available women. However, at least today there were lots of great looking babes in shorts and bikinis, all very un-single. As mentioned, it does not bother me, but even I could not help, in some cases, wondering if that was really the best she could do. For some reason, I still think that monkey-men would have been bred out of existence by now but you know, to some women, anything is preferable to self-support.
The Hollywood Beach area was crowded, both with people and with vendors selling outrageously priced merchandise. What seems weird to me is these booths that set up portable massage tables. For another reason, I still think that people rubbing another for money to feel good is something that belongs in private. They had the usual band or two that I’ve never heard of while being assured they had a hit ten years ago.
The picture of the trombone player is totally enhanced, don’t go thinking it really looked like that. There are plenty of new beach pictures for the asking because it was a perfect evening. The Argus tries to brighten the view toward the growing darkness in the east. The result is pictures that look grey when in fact it is actually quite dark.
The beach is 4.6 miles away, including the intentional detour I always make to ride past the front door of the snobby Diplomat. Especially when I am carrying a salvaged Igloo cooler on the back of my second-hand bicycle. Sometimes I stop to scratch my, er, kneecaps, in full view of the lobby. The building has a big hole in the middle. A big square hole. In point of fact, it does not look that bad at all. Just big enough for a terrorist to fly a Piper Cub through. For practice, I mean.
Several calls today. Anna wanting to know about pay for Bijou. I suggested $50 for the screen test and $50 per hour thereafter, but wait to see what is offered first. There were two other dogs on set, so much for the pleas of last minute desperation, again. However, one was a Chihuahua and the other a Pug, neither can compete with Bijou who is some kind of breed, I think a cross between a poodle and a terrier. Also, you can cancel the other two for sheer stage presence and personality.
Dickens called to confirm for tomorrow. I’ll be there. The heavy advertising, by that I mean we are now the second most prolific advertiser on the local Craigslist, has not resulted in any calls. Somebody else appears to be doing it full time and every second ad is theirs. They have not yet figured out the tables and how to advertise in more than one town. We have them beat on both those counts and you know who to thank for that.
We still have not located the Bavarian creamer for the preacher’s wife. I spent several hours on the accounting for Don. The trick to cutting that to size will be to see if the source can send us the spreadsheet rather than the printout. Don has been paying to have someone go through the report picking out numbers and typing them onto a grid – the very work you should try to avoid on a computer.
Then on to my favorite [this week], the business card index. After more hours of study I was able to discover how to use a “container” to make the web page behave. I need 320 more cards to make it a paying proposition, or at least I think so. Outer page is done except for fine tuning the command bar. I’m going to design an el cheapo template for people who only pay the basic fee or that I want to sign up. Plus an on-line form to get their business hours and to see if it works asking people to send me the card as an attachment.
For example, I’m only going to give them one phone number free. It appears just below the business card itself, partly because some of them write it too small on the card (to be easily read on a monitor). I’m placing a horizontal bar across the lower edge and I’ve decided to keep all my own advertising “below the fold”. I’ve tested the browser at a variety of resolutions (800x600, 960x600, 1024x768, 1088x612, 1280x720, 1280x960, 1600x900, 1600x1200) and the only useful one is 1024x768 pixels. I’m not familiar with all the setting and some are downright weird, causing vertical distortion.
Following the philosophy of the Desert Fox, I will keep on going headlong, thinking it more important to overrun objectives than to secure them for now. No doubt some genius will point out the dozens of corners I’ve cut. If you are curious, the chain-reaction, the critical mass, the point at which this becomes [financially] self-sustaining, is 600 paying customers. The only limiting factor is how much of it I can do myself. No problem, Marion will help if it came to that. Meanwhile, think of the way to get those business cards in.
I am thinking of two avenues. One, the place that prints the cards, have him print 1001 instead of 1000. Two, that café by the bookstore that has that free lunch contest must do something with all those business cards they collect. If not, I’ll pay him for the free lunch to run the contest double. That’s enough for today, just don’t go thinking I’ve covered everything.
