Hello, lamppost.

The quotes from Patricia Moss about Bank of the Cascades in the Bulletin this morning were pretty choice, and I really wanted to 'comment' on them; but it's a little too much like kicking them when they're down....

The weather has definitely dampened my sales, which is to be expected. We got a little extra nice bonus weather in there. But I held off buying that last case of Magic, because I think I have enough now.

The 18 boxes of new books showed up, finally, and I'm just sort of staring at them and they are just sort of staring at me back. My mind says yes, my body says no.

I'll get to them, eventually.

Meanwhile, just maintaining the store and feeling pretty good about the general thrust of the trends.

I've always tried to be candid in this blog. I believe that what charm it might have comes from that candidness. It gets me in trouble sometimes, but its so much easier to just try to be honest, then to try to dissemble.

Sure, I probably haven't been 'minimum wage' for a while now, but it isn't a huge exaggeration, and it was certainly true when I first came up with the phrase and for most of my career. We had some success over the last 8 years or so, first because of the boom, and then because I prepared for the bust and managed to pull some profits out.

But to put it into perspective, I was talking to a guy who had thought of buying my store several years ago, and told him how much he could probably take home now. He just shook his head, and said, "That's nowhere near enough."

It's all relative, I guess.

So nothing is really going to change in my lifestyle or my work life. The store will pay for whatever improvements, and it will continue to pay me a living wage. I still like what I'm doing.

The guy who was talking about Mom and Pop stores on C-span did say one really interesting thing: it's important for the owners of such store to be a 'presence' in the store. I totally agree with that; I mean, I don't need to be there every single minute, but I'd have to say 'most' of the time. Otherwise, find another job.

Besides, I like being in charge. I would love to run the store every minute, if it didn't wear me out, burn all the little slack I've got.

Anyway, like I said, just been doing a lot of mulling.