Oye Vey.. Thats a rather approximate summation of the events of late. Not quite good at penning short hand so this long ranting will have to do.
In the housing market you deal with subjectivity. Subjectivity which can work for or against you. Subjectivity built upon human rational crossed with math of the moment. To put it in a simple nutshell my appraisal came in less than I wanted. 5% less than I wanted. Doesn’t sound like a big deal but when the money you’d draw from the equity to add fuel to capital contributions I’ll cry over any percentage lost. It was partially my fault for not explaining the details to the appraiser. Oh well, I have accepted my loss by trying all avenues except walking away from the deal and I really don’t have the time to walk away from the deal. So here’s to a new loan and equity line for less than expected!
Business plan is wrapping up quickly. It will be good when its out of the printers and ready for shopping around. The last hurdle was the menu. Jeff displayed great creativity and head-to-wall banging groking through it all. I think we’ve seen its largest moment of complexity and did the Einstein remove excess until simplicity is left approach.
[CCC](http://www.counterculturecoffee “Counter Culture Coffee”) has graciously sent us 5 espresso’s to sample. On their fourth day from roast we will have a back to back tasting to understand their range and what we might like for a house standard. Expect to hear more on how this goes. I’m making up a general tasting questionaire to start capturing more notes for later reflecting.
We’ve also been sampling many Chai’s and Chocolate’s lately. I think Monin green-tea chai concentrate hits pretty well on our scales. It does a good job bringing back all the elements liked of fresh chai with more consumer appeal (less spikes a bit more smooth). We’re not done yet though. I just unpacked a Big Train Chai shipment which is on the tasting block. For chocolates we are evaluating [Dagoba](http://www.worldwidechocolate.com/shop_dagoba.html), [Schokinag](http://www.worldpantry.com/schokinag/home.html), [Guittard](http://www.guittard.com/), and probably a few more before its over. Looking for ways of making great drinkable chocolate as well to use in our dessert line. Much fun to be had here.
On pet news, Uma is growing quiet rapidly. I’m helping Jeff install a netting in the trunkish area of his minivan. It’s got enough room for uma to stretch out and might well last through her growth. She’s exceeding her current kennel in van now though and we need a healthy solution.
The sites CSS/restyle is deffinitly backing off at the moment. I’ve been busy working more under the hood. Jeff’s network is also collapsing into mine through his Xmas present of a WiFi router. It will be nice having a larger shared network between us. Central services affords us some flexibility in how we work together. It also saves money and get better bandwith which you can’t beat. Once the dust settles from all this technology dancing I’ll be more attuned to loading up Photoshop and getting back to splicing and testing. I’ll supply some coffee to a genius CSS engineer 😉
We’re all doing good though this little Charlottean circle. Robin’s back to teaching and going to school next week and Jeff and I are just trucking along multiple courses of our own devices. All to try and reach some excellent goals that will benefit ourselves as well as the community.
-a