Cooking, Gardening, Angst and More. Including Job Search Tales and lifestyle tips about island living.
Outspoken Podcasting Chef, Sustainability Advocate and Farmer.
Diesel & Sawdust
Email the Chef
Gastrocast Forum
The Kitchen Garden Company
The Kitchen Garden Network
today
January 2008
May 2007
February 2007
November 2006
October 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
43 folders
4th of july
uk
addiction
agenda 21
appliances
asko
audio
back pain
bbc
berwick
bikes
blogging
broadband
bsl
camera
change
chef
chickens
cingular
cnn
coffee
conference
conservation
cookbook
cooking
county fair
death
declaration of independance
democracy
doggerel
earthquakes
easter
ebay
fair trade
family
farm life
fedex
feedburner
feeds
fernwood five
ferries
ferry travel
fireworks
food
food idiot
freedom
friends
funeral
future
gales
gardening
gastrocast
gmail
grass
green coffee
greenhouse
grills
halloween
heritage rivers act
home
hoophouse
iacp
injury
internet
iriver
island life
job search
job wanted
jobs
leonberger
librivox
life
links
lloyd davis
london
london marathon
lulu
macs
mainland
meme
mentally exhausted
motime
news
november 7th
painful chores
perfectpath
pets
philosophy
photos
podcasting
podchef
poetry
politics
polytunnel
ponds
pope
post it notes
presidents
press release
rage
rain
rant
san juan islands
search hits
seattle
slavery
soundseeing
speech
storm
storms
stuff
tag cloud
teaching
terrorism
the gastrocast cookbook
the kitchen garden company
thoughts
travel
un
video
vote
voting
weather
website
websites
weddings
wind
wordpress
words
work
work wanted
1776
visited *loading* times
Last weekend, The Wife, the girls and I dug a huge hole in the ground. Not for any particular reason other than to work off steam while we avoided doing any of the more reasonable chores needing doing.
The Wife and I then went to town and bought an expensive liner, just because we like to be in debt as often as possible, for as much as possible. Pumps, hoses, fish, etc will all come later I suppose. This past weekend with the liner in (photos to come) we set about laying rocks around it and determing how a waterfall is to be built. Not only did we do this, but we also made a boggy area at one end. The weather has followed suit and has rained non-stop since then. The first rain of the summer, just in time to stall the tomatoes from ripening.
All this because we had some gasses left over from the wedding we catered earlier in the summer ( and the fact we're raving mad):
Not to mention, we are trying to keep our minds off of our mad decision to think about starting a food service business--all cost and risk, hard work and hard won reward. We are waiting for results from realtors over property, and financial and business advice from a Small Business Adminastration aide (you sure get what you pay for here. . . .). Combine this all with our own indecision about what direction our life is going to take and you get this:
The fair is over as of last Sunday. I thought I was going to have to go retrieve the family's entries, but a neighbor said she would get everything for us to save us a days trip. She just dropped off everything today. I should have thought to post these photos sooner--like after I won the ribbons--a 2nd and 3rd place. Not bad, as there were 100's in the classes. I can't believe, though, that the week is flying by. School will begin soon and I'm not even close to ready for it.
We're off to the County Fair tonight. My eldest has been there most of the week showing her lamb, and rabbit and some one elses Llama. She has quite a few ribbons. And not the only one. Another fair child won a ribbon for a heart shaped pillow, and I got a red and white for two of my pictures. My job today is to contain the girls' excitement at least until 4pm when we catch the ferry. We're not looking forward to coming back at 10pm, but we may get lucky and catch a lift home in my brother-in-laws boat. I'll have to drive over on Sunday to pick up all our entries. I'm going to try bringing my camera to take some pics, and I may try to do a soundseeing podcast while I'm over there. It all depends on what kind of day the Wife has had at work.
Meanwhile plans creep ahead on our business project. I'm stuck in the horrible fact gathering phase. The phase in which you realize all of your ideas are hair-brained and will cost way more money than you can possible recoup. The phase where there is no rejection (other than self), where everyone is kind to you as they jockey to see how large a piece of your pie they can cut. But wait, there is no pie yet--it's all hypothetical. Catch-22's have never been my favorite. That they partner so well with my other least-favorite thing: bureaucracy, is no wonder. The hoops and governmental departments and petty, high-minded, functionarys one must deal with for even the simplest of projects is simply mind-numbing. I've dealt with it all before, but I was used to it then. I was caloused. I have grown soft in the last 5 years and all the while new regulations and further road-blocks have entered the system, a fee due at each step of the way. Government. . .encourage small business. . .not in my neck of the woods. At least $15000 extra in fees and materials, and "code requirments" just to bring an older establishment up to speed, or to begin one from scratch. That's a lot of customers coming in the door, each spending $3.00. Let's hope my pessimistic figures are just that.
Spent most of yesterday and some of today working out the costs for opening a bakery. I figure if I can't find a job I can always make work for myself. The Long Suffering Wife and I came up with a great name and costed out all the equipment we'd need and did some figuring as to start-up costs. We also ran through a menu and a list of places we could lease to get the thing going. More in the way of an exercise than anything. We went for the bakery with cafe serving things which aren't available around here. Not that we could have the bakery on our own island--no business or zoning. However, on another island there is a large enough town without a dedicated bakery. The wife works over there at the pharmacy now. Only problem is, within the actual town itself there are already 28 food establishments vying for the same trade. Half of those serve espresso and sweet breads of some kind. While a European bakery with artisanal bread would probably fly we're not sure we could even get the 22 people a day each spending $7 everyday of the month we'd need to break even. At the end of the day we'd need twice that to avoid going in the hole within a year. With our finances that is not an option.
This would all hinge on us getting the loan of $100k to even finance the venture. So definately a no go there. The additional fact that we'd have to move when we can't even sell our house and can't afford to keep this one and rent another also makes this moot. Still, it has opened my eyes to some resources I might try to take advantage of. I won't stop looking for work anytime soon, but I also won't keep foolishly expecting something to come along either. What a waste of a year.
I've gotten involved in an interesting project. Public Domain Audio Books. You should really check this out. It could be the next thing--and I'm not just saying that because I'm involved. I would really like this to take the internet by storm. The idea is to take an public domain book and have volunteers read and record a chapter and then podcast the book chapter by chapter. Librivox's first book is The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.
Listen to Chapter One. And then hear me stumble and blurt through Chapter Two. Other chapters will follow. To have this book and future ones downloaded automatically into iTunes or any other podcast ready RSS catcher use this address: Librivox
Ach.
I've been trying to rework my website. Now I remember why it's been over two years since I put one up. . . . What a pain. Plus I'm trying to learn GoLive CS2 because my old version doesn't work on my new computer. It's got a lot of cool features, but whoa, my head is spinning. I hate projects like this. They have no defined time limit. Things slow down when the computer is grinding away and the hours fly by while nothing apparently productive gets done.
Still, I think the whole site needs a major re-work. I only hope I'm up to the task. I mean at the rate I'm going now--with a days spent and only two minor pages finished and nothing looking quite right--this could take a long time. I'm also hoping to impliment a blog page on the site to take the place of my poorly managed "news" page. The real problem is stripping everything down to the ground and re-building it and still managing to have everything I want to keep. And I'm not even sure about that any more.
Web design has undergone some huge changes in the last two years and I was never that on top of it in the first place. How do you get that great site which says--here I am, come hire me? Without all the flash crap, music, and bling.
Why can't it be as easy as whipping up a Motime Blog? As well, I can't even remember or access all the sites I once thought were cool and could be a basis for my own. Some of the stuff was way beyond my abilties. Still, I think the menu section of what I have, with the interactive seasonal foods is too cool to loose. The rest of the page looks like crap these days--too many unchecked minor changes.
Ah if only I had the clients and money to match my ambitious vision of corporate expansion. . . . .Watch this space.
Typical. Bloody typical. After months of being in a deep funk, I surf up to the top of a popularity wave and have a sucessful event. No problems, large payoff (by which I mean we made a bit of money instead of breaking even or landing in a hole), lots of praise and adulation. I am bouyant, confidant and ready to forge ahead. So I bask in the glow for a few days. Over the past couple of days I have ventured out--back in to the land of job foraging. And what have I found? Less than you might expect. Even worse I have been pre-rejected. Some people won't even talk to me, answer my emails, return my calls. I had to check my caller id to make sure it didn't read Karl Rove or something. I have not gotten a job because I was not homosexual, because I could have been lying about not being a homosexual, and despite being some people's notion of fun, I refuse to wear a dress at work, and my extra bits are all in the wrong place. Go figure. All of this, and a case of descrimination at a previous job (hey, I can't help the fact that I was raised Catholic and have had Catholic employers. . . .) is highly illegal. But the bastards never come right out an say it in a way that isn't indemnifying.
So today I have again faced the un-returned calls, the broken promises of a reply and a basic rejection of all things employable. And geeze I didn't even have to dazzle them with my arrogant wit and snobbish ways. I'm thinking I should just change my resume to read Sarcastic Twat, Hopelessly Idle, Feck Off. I'll probably get more response than I have in a year. The twisted thing about all this is that trips to the beach are no longer special. All the things most people do on their days off are my living nightmare. It all ends up being a bone-idle horror show. It's like being back in University without the classes to skip, no dope smoking friends to waste a day with, no swinging girl friends and all day happy hours. God, I sound like a complete waistrel, even then. . . .
So I got a call, just now. No, not a real job. A client in a bind--needs to entertain here on the island on Friday night. Just for 3 people. Of course I said yes. Can't refuse a good client. But 3 people. Where's the money in that??? Especially with a trip to the mainland for fresh supplies, etc. Ah, I should be grateful. But somehow I'm not.
Oh, I'm way to negative to keep this up. Time to sign off and snap out of it.
Template by motime.com | header image credit: Markus Gann © www.begann.de