Sunday 17 June, 2007 @ 2028

Greetings Fair Readers,

Well, it's raining again. I must say the rain gods have done pretty well by us this weekend and kept the precipitation to the evenings and overnight. This is the 50th anniversary of the Edmonds Art Festival and like most other years there was little to get excited about art-wise. There were a few shining points but most exhibitors were the same old dreary lack of creativity hobbyists that tend to populate these local shows. It surprises me here though as this is a very large event here on the west coast and they claim it is juried for entry but we still see a lot of crap displayed. Maybe there just aren't enough "good" artists interested in coming to Edmonds.

As always this happy festival falls on Father's day weekend so it was that as well. Henry and I had a wonderful day and enjoyed each other's company for the last weekend before school is out. Henry came down with his Mum this morning and he and I did some shopping,helped his Mum pick up a new bike she purchased and he took me out to lunch at Panda Express. We came home, wandered up to the arts festival only a few blocks from the house and wandered about. Henry's class did a group tapestry and that was one of the shining moments of which I spoke earlier; not just his classes work but the student portion of the festival that was housed in the neighboring community center. There are serious talents among the young people of our community. I hope the local school systems can encourage and nurture it and not just beat it out of these kids before they reach their upper grades as is so often the case. We came home and watched a movie and Henry went back to his Mum's a bit ago. This actually works out for me a bit better as I have a lot on which to work this week to get caught up before I head out on holiday the middle of next week.

It's been quite a couple weeks for dining; I have had the opportunity to lunch @ Assagio (http://www.assaggioseattle.com/) where I had the penne ala vodka, Bai Pai (http://www.baipairestaurant.com/) and enjoyed the chicken larb we shared to begin and the green curry w/ chicken and then just Friday enjoyed Il Terrazzo Carmine (http://ilterrazzocarmine.com/) where I had the pennette con salmone with fresh local salmon and asparagus in a vodka cream sauce served with pennette. this coming week we are headed to Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizza (http://www.tuttabella.com/) on Tuesday and then it appears we will be celebrating my friend Eva's birthday with Ezell's Fried Chicken (http://www.ezellschicken.com/) for a picnic with the work team at the home of our team's manager and then a brunch at Eva's apartment on Saturday to celebrate Queerfest during pride weekend. Whew! It's a wonder I've maintained on the scale and hopefully I can get another week of the same with all this fine dining.

Today while out and about we ran into some friends we haven't seen in some time; Eric and Caleb. Caleb is a year younger than Henry and used to live on the same cul de sac where Henry and I lived when I was still married to Henry's Mum. Eric has started a new business renting pop top folding tent trailers (http://popuprvrentals.com/). This is really great news as Henry and I were looking at renting one of these fine rigs for a long weekend here or there this summer in between the summer markets and when last I looked there were no rental establishments for these trailers south of Bellingham any longer. It was good to see our friends and good to find out there is now a service for which I had been searching locally.

I spent a few hours working on our website this weekend and am frustrated by a couple of issue but am continuing on and hope to have the site up and running prior to next weekend. I was able to set up a PayPal account by which we will be able to accept credit and debit card payments for the cookies as we continue to grow. The site will have an upcoming events calendar I'll be using to update our friends and customers as to where we'll be over the summer as I'm able to procure reservations with the assorted markets in the Puget Sound so be sure and keep checking the URL http://mywoofworld.com/ for more updates.

That's about it for now, so just remember - be excellent to each other!

Wednesday 13 June 2007 @ 2121

Greetings,

Another week half over and looking forward to the weekend. Still trying to get into a Saturday market this week but so far no luck. The Seattle Neighborhood market association decided they want to stick to people food only right now but I asked that they keep us in mind if the reconsider. We just made a commitment for the Oak Harbor market on Thursday evening the 28th and the market master was very excited to have us involved. If it goes well we'll try and get up there a couple more Thursdays over the summer. The same market master runs the Coupeville Saturday market and she has another dog treat vendor there already and although that does not preclude us from being there, she was very kind and let us know that he is pretty established and the first couple weekends might be a bit slow for sales. We'll still give it a go later this summer plus we have friends in Coupeville with whom we can visit while there.
This weekend if I can't get into a Saturday market I'll get some work done around the house and also try and work on the website. We are continuing to get an order here and there from friends and this could make things easier for everyone to contact us. Plus the idea of many different markets this summer hopefully will lead to orders year round over the website once I get it up and running. I am hoping to add a calendar so we can let folks know where we will be on any give dates this summer.
On the home front, we are starting to see some strawberries on the small plot we planted as well as some peppers and our bush peas are really taking off. We are hoping to get some weeding done soon before everything gets too overrun and we're hoping to have a July 4 party this year as well since the parade goes right in front of the house.
Henry is working on a biography of Henry Ford and finishing his final draft tonight. He is looking forward to the end of school after next week and we're working out a camp schedule to get us through. It appears he'll only have to attend about 4 weeks of camp this year and we're all happy about that.
Work is good at my real job, I was recently promoted to Senior Business Analyst and continue to work on bigger and bigger projects. I continue o enjoy the increased visibility as a SME but also continue to love the fact I have no direct reports. Analyst positions seem to suit that kind of work and I continue to consider myself lucky to be one.
Signing off for now, need to find some images of early and later model Ford vehicles for Henry. All the best

Sunda 10 June 2007; 2110

Greetings Fair Readers,

Today was the first of our business ventures at the Fremont Street Market. As those of you fromSeattle know, Fremont is the self proclaimed "center of the universe"and is a very eclectic neighborhood. It has a tremendous streetmarket on Sundays that is part famer's market and part flea market. Today we had a lovely Spring day here in Seattle and were able to do our first market as Woof World. We were quite successful beginning the day with 115 boxes of K9 Kookies and selling 61. We more than broke even and have enough to pay back the seed money that I lent the business for the change bank and the market booth fee. I am headed to the local bank to open our checking acount and it feels mighty official. Here are a few pictures from the day.

From our booth up the street

You may know this fellow

Is that a happy face or what?

That's about it for today. It was a terrific day and we had a great time. We even had an inquiry for wholesale orders already. This could be the start of something big...

Bye for now

Saturday 9 June 2007; 10:34

Greetings Fair Readers,
It's been sometime since my last post (over 6 months!) my how time flies?!?!
We had a nice winter, cold and wet but so far a fairly nice spring with a number of days of very nice warm sunny days here in the NW.

Henry and I completed the 2007 Washington Tour de Cure in May and Henry was one of the top fund raisers and was invited to a privte meet and greet with 3 time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond but Greg'sMother wastaken ill just prior to the event so he was unable to make it to that or the ride forwhich he was scheduled to be the leader of the 45 mile route. He did however send a signed yellow jersey for each ofthe two kids that were high fundraisers and Henry was one of those two. When Henry heard Greg's Mom was ill, he printed an 8X10 of himself finishing the last Tour de Cure on glossy paper and autographed it, "To Greg, From Henry". It was a high point of the evening when Henry presented that to Greg's manager who had delivered the jerseys. The day of the ride was very nice and although it began with rain, it ended up being sunny and cool to start but warm by the halfway point. We made some new friends, the Peterson's and Henry rode with another boy named Conrad most of the way.

Conrad rode with his Mom while his brother Nyk(the other high fundraiser and recipient of the other signed yellow jersey) rode the 45 mile route with his Dad, Kurt. Conrad's Mom Celeste was a much stronger rider than I so she held the front, the boys stayed somewhere in the middle and I brought up the rear most of the day so we were ableto let the boys ride on their own quite a lot and still keep an eye on them.

Once again it was a terrific adventure and between us, Henry and I raised over $3000.00 including the matching funds that are still to be tallied for diabetes research. It is a fun event and we will continue to participate in the coming years. Here are our Tour de Cure websites. Thank you all for your support of us and this great cause.

Henry - http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?px=3320838&pg=personal&fr_id=4393

Jim - http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=4393&px=3287783

Our newest project is Woof World. Henry and I have gone into business and will be touring the Puget Sound farmer's markets throughout the summer as purveyors of handmade tasty all natural dog treats. We are in high production mode and beginning to pack the car for our first foray into the market in the Fremont neighborhoold tomorrow. We are very excited about this venture and have completed many, many packages of our treats. We have put all 6of our curent flavors through extensive taste tests with our friends and have a number of testimonials to their goodness.

Here's one from our neighbor Gracie, "Woof, bark bark bark, grrrrrrrrr WOOF!"

And another from our founder Butch, "WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOOOOOOO grrrRRRRR".

This has been a lot of fun and we have begun making friends in the farmer's market community for advice and direction. The recipes are all original and we have been in development for a number ofmonths. I am taking this opportunity to teach Henry a few things about business and economics as well. We started with $300 in seed money and he is starting to learn about budgeting and operating costs; even taxes as we are now official and have a state business license and must collect sales tax. I will do my best to update this site with our new adventures throughout the summer and our successes and failures. We are now working on a Woof World website, http://mywoofworld.com/ check often as I am working on getting the site up and running as we speak and hope to have going by July 1.

In closing, let me provide a couple pictures that I think say it all as to why we're doing this.