Third down, and three yards....

I don't think the 4th of July falling on a Saturday did us any favors.

I showed up at noon, yesterday, and worked until 4:00. I had nearly 100 people in the door. Now I consider 100 people a benchmark for busy on an 8 hour day, much less a 4 hour day. And this is avoiding most of the parade traffic.

But the 100 people probably spent the lowest per customer average I can ever remember having. To put it in perspective, I had 15% less customers on Thursday last week, and did 6 times the business.

Anyway, I've already done my full budget for July, I've placed my bets and rolled the dice, and now we'll see.

In about a week to ten days, I'll start spending my August budget.

Right now, I'm not sure what to think. I just don't think I've seen any of what I'd call real tourist business. Lots of people, to be sure. But not the kind of spending I'm used to seeing in the summer.

I actually do less business with regulars during the summer, as they go off and spend money on other things and at other places. But generally, this is more than compensated for by tourism. Same is true at Christmas.

But I still haven't seen a clear signs this is going to happen. Like I said, the 4th of July falling on a Saturday really muddied the waters.

It's not too late. We're just about that point late in the third quarter when your team is behind, but can still win the game if they can put together a scoring drive....You know what I mean? I would prefer to be ahead about 20 points, right now, but not all is lost.

So I'll be watching the next ten days closely, and if business still hasn't picked up, I'll make a mid-course correction and change how I budget August.

I'm going to make a profit in any event, but I'd rather make a bigger profit than a smaller profit.