Movement

So we've had some movement at our location lately. I can't say much but it's a step in the right direction. We had a great conversation with our would-be landlord, reiterating our interest in the space. We may soon have an opportunity to be able to start small and eventually grow in to it. Hopefully we'll be able to figure some stuff out this week or next.

Community Involvement

I am super excited because this Tuesday there is an open house for the New Community Center at SE 12th and Stark.

About two months ago I got a survey in the mail asking my opinion for what I'd want in a community center. The survey focused on the new swimming pool which was EXACTLY what I wanted to express my opinion about.

Growing up I spent every single day of the summer at our local swimming pool. We had two glorious diving boards, a one meter and a three meter, that I probably spent 95% of my time on at the pool. At age 8, I was the only girl that knew how to do a One and a Half Sumersault and I reveled in the attention.

My sophomore year in high school we got a swimming and diving team at my school. I jumped at the opportunity and spent most of my days getting up at 5AM to go to practice before school. Looking back, I definitely think it instilled a sense of discipline that has carried through in to my adult life.

Before moving to Portland, I did some research on the state of diving in Oregon. It's not good. Zero high schools have swimming or diving teams and only one of the colleges has a swim team (but no diving and it's only girls). During the heat-wave of this summer we went to the pool and saw kids lining up to jump off the side of the pool!! These kids are in desperate need of some diving boards!!

So when I got my survey in the mail I wrote all over it that I thought the children of Portland deserved some diving boards. I also wrote that I wanted to help in any way I can. Never-mind that I have a deep seeded wish to create an Olympic level diving facility (full of trampolines, harnesses and foam pits) one day. But we need to start somewhere.

If anyone's interested the next meeting is:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25th
BUCKMAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
320 SE 16TH Ave.
7PM - 9PM

Crazy Calendar

Justin wanted to take a picture of our calendar this month because it's never ever been this full. We've had so much going on and September is beginning to look like it could be the same way.

We've been helping our friend Betty out at the Street of Dreams on the weekends. It's really fun and we like being able to do this together. If we can get paid and still be together, then even better.

I got three new clients in the past week and have set up meetings with two other people for next week. I love being able to help all these people. I have a problem sitting still, so the busier I am the better. This issue has been illuminated this summer as we wait for our location to pan out. We've been trying to find the balance between continuing to focus on our record store while at the same time being patient. Keeping our calendar packed has been a great way to pass the time.

About a week ago we were watching TV and ended up sticking to the Portland Public Access channel. They were having a meeting about Small Businesses and how Portland was trying to be a player in the global economy. There was one lady that owned a green building company and she said a lot of things that rang true to me, like how if you don't need venture capital from the OEN they don't know how to help you. I had a similar experience. So anyways, she just happened to come by the Street of Dreams last weekend and I jumped at the opportunity to introduce myself. But I will give Justin credit; he recognized her first. So now we've been emailing back and forth and I'm meeting with her next week. Seems like she's building a mentorship program that I might want to be a part of.

When you live the life of an entrepreneur you have to jump at opportunities like that. Probably only 25% of the opportunities lead somewhere, but that's a pretty great statistic for me. I'm excited to see where it may lead.

Justin is DJing at the Jade Lounge tonight. We have a bunch of friends coming out and we're looking forward to it.

Local First!

We decided a long time ago that we wanted to be a part of the Local First movement. It's important to us to be able to help perpetuate the local economy.

One of my clients has a day job at a restaurant that gets all their produce from the Farmer's Market. It got me wondering about how that works in the off season. From what I can tell, there are only two year-round farmer's markets; the People's Farmer's Market and the Hillsdale Farmer's Market. One is on Wednesdays and the other is only twice a month on Sundays in the winter. I think I need to do some more investigative research in to how this whole thing should work. It seems to me that we'd need to re-stock produce at least twice a week.

We're also trying to figure out what we're doing with coffee. Originally we intended on selling Stumptown Coffee but the location we are looking at has too many other other establishments selling Stumptown. So we may want to go another direction. Our friends at the Little Red Bike Cafe use Courier Coffee Roasters and they're mighty delicious.

We're big fans of Grand Central for bread and Sunshine Dairy for milk and cheese. But in terms of bread, we're open to suggestions because GC seems to get stale after a very short amount of time. But then again maybe I just need to start using some Debbie Meyer Green Bags :)

What I am MOST excited about using are Earth Cups.


They're made from a company in Bend and are not only made from renewable resources but they're completely biodegradable!

Can we please just open already?!?!?

Cash & Carry

I'll start this off by saying, I love what I do. I love creating businesses and helping others to create their own. I currently have three clients, all of which are in the food industry. Every time I go through the business planning process with them I get to re-live my own business plan and tweak it as we go.

Last week I took one of my clients to Cash & Carry for research. The first time I was ever in this store I was like a kid in a candy store. It actually rivaled my kid in a candy store experience of working the American Music Awards in '05 and being surrounded by celebrities everywhere I went. I was in heaven.

To anyone familiar with Smart & Final, Cash & Carry is their bigger, stronger, smarter older brother. It's the go-to place for restauranteurs in Portland. They have everything from produce to paper products to basically anything you can think of that goes in a restaurant.

I brought my client there because not only is it a feeding ground for great ideas, but it makes you think of things that you hadn't thought of before. We brought notebooks and pens and I had her write down everything that she wanted. This will all go in to her budget. We spent about an hour and a half in there bouncing ideas off of each other and having a blast.

I highly recommend anyone thinking about opening up a place to go on an exploratory mission to Cash & Carry. It's the most fun you'll have in a grocery store.

Logo Design Process

Thanks to some amazing friends, we have been able to somewhat figure out what we want in a logo. Justin and I are by no means graphic artists so we enlisted the help of some friends. Each has helped us narrow down what we're looking for and we are eternally grateful.

I wanted to share with you some of the examples one of our friends did for us. It's pretty cool to see them all in one place.

When we went to him we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted based on previous efforts. He just wanted to show us some other options. I quite like how witty the third one on the top is. He's incorporating a sphinx, which plays off the whole Hall of Records pun.

The second one on the top is most like our original idea, only before we had seen it in a wrapped computer font instead of hand drawn. We're going to play around with the letters and add embellishments. Justin really likes the stars in the bottom left drawing. We're basing them off another logo we found online.

I'm excited to see where this goes. We're expecting another round here soon.

Night Owl Blog

Two times a year, vinyl lovers from all over the world come to Portland for the Night Owl Record Show. Justin sold records at the last one and we're happy to be a part of the upcoming show on October 17th.

They recently started a blog and this week they featured Justin! So nice!

Beat Off Video

Justin made a new video of last night's Beat Off at Holocene! We had a blast!

Beat Off Beat Battle: Portland, OR 8-5-09 from Justin Meyer on Vimeo.

Beat Off Part Deux

Tonight we're selling records the Beat Off at Holocene. This is the second time we're doing it and we're looking forward to it. We met a lot of really cool people last time.

We were supposed to also sell at Rock the Runways on the 15th, but something happened with the city and they aren't having any vendors this year. But we just got a call about a record show up in Seattle in September that we're probably going to go to. I'll jump at any chance to go see Seattle again.

I'm going to my first women-only networking event next Tuesday. It's more for my business consulting business than the record business, but since both are growing, I'll talk about it. I just finished ordering my business cards, signing up for LinkedIn and creating my own website. It's free, so it's not much, but hey, it's better than nothing!

Sammy's

Right now I am in Post-Sammy Heaven. In our house, Sammy's = Sandwiches.

We just had the most amazing lunch we've had in a long time.

Today is the day we start testing spreads for our sandwich menu. We're keeping our menu simple with soup, salads and sandwiches. And we know that any restaurant can get the top quality bread and the top quality meat, but the real difference is in the spread.

So I went to the store and got Grand Central Como Bread, Deli Turkey and all the ingredients to make Chipotle Mayo, Pesto Mayo and Homemade Vegan Mayo.

After two attempts to make the Vegan Mayo, I'm sad to report that I may have to figure out another recipe. No matter how slowly I poured the oil in it just did not thicken! So oh well.

But the Chipotle and Pesto Mayo's were amazing!!!

We're thinking Pesto Mayo on Turkey and Chipotle Mayo on Oven Roasted Chicken or on a BLT. YUMMY!!!!!!

Okay, now I'm going back to my food coma :)