Gopher Improvement Day...

Hey all... today was the implementation of phase three of the Gopher Improvement Plan. As such, I am wearing a T-shirt and jeans today. A lot of work was done as more slatwall went up. Now I need to order some more shelves, brackets, and hooks to help fill it and move some stock around.

Pictures will be available eventually as I didn't bring a camera today.

Thanks to HiSign, TreeRat, P-Web, CafeSushi, Snow, and Ranger for all the help. It, as always, appreciated.

-- GopherDave, Loquacious, and Skribl

Swoons and Slumps...

This week at the store has been slow... really slow. Now, if this was during our first two years of business, our sales would be right on par with our then-current average, but we are in our sixth year. Our level of average business has increased a *LOT* over the last three years. Now, the business we are doing is slow. I think I may have discovered an answer though...

Spring Break at the local university, junior college, and high schools.

Why is this news, you ask? Doesn't this happen every year during vacation times? Well, until this year, for us the answer would have been "no". Our sales have been on such a steady increase that we have never before encountered the swoon in business that occurs when roughly 40% of the game-playing populace leaves town. Now, with our sales running higher than they have ever been, we are in a position where our growth is starting to level out, and thus we now notice when folks leave town for an extended vacation.

It's going to make summer interesting, as we have never done the "summer swoon" before. Our sales in summer have always stayed level with our ongoing business. Well, we wanted to grow, and a lack of sales will hamper that, so we had better develop more avenues of making money.

Once we finish the remodel, we'll get right on that...

-- GopherDave

Back... Again...

Theme name: Bruised Stripes (??? - Not sure if that works)

Not much happened yesterday... Loq sent me home early as my spine has been acting up. Luckily I had a massage scheduled for that night. That's the good news. The bad news is that the spot in my back that has been giving me fits got worked for at LEAST 35 minutes of the hour, only to have it re-tighten within five minutes.I felt the therapist working on it... I felt the spot relax and loosen up... and I felt the spot "re-solidify" pretty much after each time she stopped working on it.

Today, I'm about to go into the store and do a late week order. Wish me luck that I don't wrench a toe or something bizarre like that...

-- GopherDave

Running Out Of Titles...

So... I'm running out of headers for blog posts. The "Day XXX of 362" stuff made things much simpler. As it goes, I'm going to repeat a title eventually, just like I repeated one of the outfits recently within twelve days of me first wearing it. I'll admit, it's a good-looking, albeit conservative pairing, but I do strive for more variety than that.

Speaking of conservative, my sweater vest-wearing, GOP nomination-seeking counterpart got *spanked* by more than ten percent by the other GOP front runner. I cannot complain much here, as I did not get much of a chance to go vote yesterday (honestly, I forgot), but two things basically kept it from my head. One, it was the primaries. Two, I don't like ANYONE currently in the GOP pool. Hell, if it wasn't too late to get in the game, I might have considered throwing my hat in the ring. My platform against Rick Santorum would be "I wore them first!", while my strategy against Romney, Gingrich, and Paul would be "I'm not any of these other crazy bast*rds!" I kind of like my chances... =P

Stepping beyond politics (mostly due to my not being very political), last night was KnightErrantJR's DC Adventures game. It was, as always, a blast. Last night was a big fight with a "Captain Nazi's Amulet-enhanced" Vandal Savage. (NOTE: I'm still trying to work my head around that one.) In short, we've been chasing a trail of infected Lazarus Pits and finally (we believe) found the source of it all. Fight was had... Savage hit like a truck... Used a combination of brains and brawn to beat him. When it was all said and done, Marathon dropped Savage from the stratosphere. Yes, Marathon knows it will kill him, but he also knows that Savage will get right back up as if nothing had really happened. Heck, the drop from several miles was much nicer than what half of the team wanted to do with him, which was to shove vandal into the Sun.

Remember what I said about us being a more cheerful group of heroes? Yeah... forget that...

-- GopherDave

Beyond Relaxed...

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Basically, after I came to the store to do orders...

...I took Loquacious out to lunch during her break from work. It was enjoyable and we are using "dates" like this to reconnect a bit during my "away building a business" time...

...I went home and found the kids awake and doing their own things during spring break. So, I hung out with the dog and ended up falling asleep...

...Woke up in time to get the kids directed to a couple of chores right before Loq got home. Then, since the dinner Loq had planned wasn't finished cooking (crock pot dish), we went and got pizza from a local take-and-bake place. Hung out with Loq and the girl as we ate (the boy was being antisocial)...

...Loq developed a headache and wandered to bed early, so the the girl and I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, part one. When it was over, we realized we didn't have Part 2, so we went out and bought it, then came home and watched it...

...Then it was very late and I went to bed.

All in all, it was a great day. HiSign and BigBank held down the store admirably. I got one phone call from BigBank with a question, but that was the extent of any "intrusion" of the store into my day beyond that which I had already done myself. Truthfully, BB's question was incredibly minor and so not really any sort of bother. If every Monday ends up like yesterday, then it's all a blessing.

Today, I get to deal with the bulk of the orders I placed yesterday. Since Skribl is on spring break, he's coming to the store with me to help, so it should go fairly smoothly. Later on tonight, I get to play Marathon in KnightErrantJR's DC Adventures game.

Now, KEJR's game went through a bit of a reset recently, with two characters now having significantly altered personalities. The new personalities of the character's have brightened up the mood of the group a great deal. In fact, the heightened "cheer" factor of the group has made Marathon's seriously ingrained cynicism seem woefully out of place in the game. I'm still trying to figure out how Marathon is going to adapt to it, or even if he is at all. If he doesn't, he's going to shift from being the team's "Batman" to the team's "Wolverine" (old-school, loose cannon version), and that is never a direction I intended him to go.

Hmmmm...

-- GopherDave

I Wonder...

The shirt is more blue than purple/gray, though I have no idea why the camera had a brain fart like this...

And I called it... I spent about two hours at the store today total. Afterward I came home, puttered around for a bit, then took the Loquacious one out to lunch. Now I'm at home hanging with the dog and the kids (spring break for them), and not doing, much of anything.

Part of me is cogitating game ideas while the other part of me is thinking there is other stuff I could be doing. Ehhh... I'm gonna be lazy for now...

-- GopherDave

Short Days...

Today is one of my short days... four hours of "open time" plus a couple hours overseeing the cleaning of the floors. Add to that a bit of time to file monthly sales tax, and I'll be at the store for something on the order of five... five and a half hours tonight. Yesterday, I was here long enough to drop Skribl and some soda and water inventory off, receive said inventory into the point-of-sale system, and say hello to the wife. Monday, I plan to be here long enough to get an order placed. Total amount of hours being worked in-store... roughly ten. After having worked twelve-plus hour days for the better part of three years, weekends like this feel *REALLY* weird.

Today, I got some gaming in, though. I started a new game that will run off-site for a bit. I'm honestly not seeing this game going for long. It's really just an opportunity for me to flex my GM-muscles and "keep in shape" as you will. Just with the one session, though, I am already having thoughts about other games I want to run again. Plus, with all of this "free time" I'm having lately, it may actually become a reality. No bets, though...

Once I get settled into my "new" schedule, I may even begin to flex the cooking muscles once again, and I know that Loq and the kids would *love* that. With twenty years of food service experience behind me, plus a mother and grandmother from the South, and a Cajun great-grandmother to learn from as I grew up, I have a pretty damn good set of keys to the stove (as it were) and the ability to grill like a fiend.

Hmmmmmm.... Hawaiian burgers or Dave tacos sound *REALLY* good, or maybe something different...

We'll have to see...

-- GopherDave