UMTravels

At least I was up whe MoonSong came to clean. Actually got a bunch of stuff done this morning, including a video interview — here is a shot of the webcam attached to a pencil sticking out of a cup: After the quick interview I was out of the house and on the way to […]

11-30 update. Well, the answer is not really, beyond posting a subject line. Will look for an Amazon Kindle WordPress App for that. Meantime, here is the picture I wanted to post of Swanda, the inflatable polar bear, and I: [210.1]

The answer? With 85+ wines to taste in a two-hour period, swirl, sip and spit. Well, spit anything that is under $50 a bottle wholesale. That left swallowing for about 25 of the selections. How about this bottle at $90 retail: That would be the 2009 Chateauneuf-du-Pape Rouge. Yummy, but out of my price range. […]

Full day in the shop today. A full quiet day. Less than Turkey day which was only four open hours, and less than the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Oh well, got power run for a small space heater near the cash wrap and am down to like nine wine cards left to input. I see Tuesday […]

Just in time for the Champagne Season, Madrona Wine Merchants the announcement of their new temperature controlled wine cooler. Stop in for that cold bottle of bubbly, or even a white wine or two. That was the post on the Facebook Page (hey, by the way, come like us http://www.facebook.com/madronawinemerchants). The cooler can hold more […]

Goal for today: toilet paper Odd things that showed up in the mail today. Item 1: A check for $59.56, which is $41.44 less than the transfer fee for Item 2: The deed to a floating week timeshare in Cabo San Lucas. The check… a class-action settlement from half a dozen years ago having to […]

It’s our first Thanksgiving in business, so what they hell, let’s open for four hours on Thanksgiving. Actually, business wasn’t bad — booked for revenue than on Tuesday when I worked and we were open for eight hours. After work, headed off to Thanksgiving Number Two at Swanda’sâ… Some assembly required: Nothing says the holidays like […]

The morning was spent redoing all the bookings for the WorldMark Santa Fe for the second week of December. Why use points when it’s available cheap at the last minute. And then came the panic. The call from an unknown cell phone number with an area code I didn’t recognize — turned out it was Jim […]

Today was my first 8+ hour workday in over 13 years. And no, I’m not expecting ANY sympathy, it’s been a good run. What I realized as I was accepting deliveries, pricing and stocking, is that, “Wow, we generate a lot of cardboard.” Maybe I should have kept the Mommy Van instead of the MX-5. […]

The day was filled with a visit from Suze and Jim to work on artwork frames. Left them in the garage to lock up while I went shopping for a wine cooler for the shop. It is getting into the holidays and we really need something larger than the dorm fridge that I got from […]

It must be a real job, it takes an alarm clock to get me up and running. My work schedule on Sunday is 11-5pm. Normally Sunday’s are fairly light days, but as we head into the holiday season people are walking out the door with full and half cases of wine. So, number of people […]

Saturday’s are my light work days in some respects, heavy in others. Not that many hours (1:45 to sometime after 4), but with 4-5 bottles of wine open, lots of traffic both in front of the counter and behind. The routine we’ve gotten into is Jim works the floor, the wine rep pours and does […]

Lazy morning followed by “Owner Re-Education” — the things that I’ll do for $75 an hour. And they worked me over. First the novice (who really didn’t know shit), then the shark, then the branch manager — all trying go get me to buy more WorldMark points. It didn’t work. It did get me thinking about adding […]

Nice to sleep in for once, though the sounds of construction don’t make it easy. By 10am I’ve picked up the BagBoy again to spend the day hanging out watching movies and other stuff, like a late breakfast and a late lunch. By 5:30 he’s back home. I think we really have about 12 hours […]

Well, Hugo finall showed up at 11:30 — I left him to finish up the rest of the insulation work in the attic. Headed to Seaside today — ETA is to be checked in with the BagBoy by 4pm. Stopped in Olympia for gas and to hit the markdown meat rack — scored big time: Spiral cut ham […]

It’s official, I’m now MVP Gold on Alaska Airlines for next year: Member Name: MARK STEPHEN SOUDER MVP Gold Mileage Plan Number: XXXXXXXX Available Miles: 183,118 Elite Tier Status Qualification YTD Alaska Miles Flown:   40,232          34,768 Miles to MVP Gold 75K YTD Alaska/Qualifying Partner* Miles Flown:   40,232       49,768 Miles to MVP Gold 75K YTD Alaska/Qualifying […]

Early morning with Jameson in the house. Up at seven and he was out of the house fed and a lunch packed by eight. At least he let me sleep until seven and woke me with coffee. Out to the shop at ten to make the pieces for the shelves in the bathroom at the […]

Got to the shop around 10:30am just in case there was a problem after the power went out last night. Arrive to find: We have power The credit card machine “auto-settled” so there was a nice tape waiting for me The cash register spit up its tape as well. Got all the bookwork done and […]

If it’s Saturday it must be shop duty. Do the shopping up the hill, come home, vacuum seal some of the meat, get cleaned up and head to the store for a tasting of Wines from Southern Italy. Here’s what we were tasting: Saturday we’ll have open for tasting some great wines from Puglia, Sicily […]

We were up, fed, and out of the house by 9am and off to the airport for my noon+ flight. I’d forgotten how much I dislike the Denver Airport security set-up. I was way too far into the line before I figured out where the priority lane. Oh well. VERY full flight, no upgrade. I […]