OK Guys, I know I haven't posted for a really, really long time, but...

I bought this house about a year and a half ago, and I LOVE MY HOUSE.  One of the major reasons I didn't want to buy it was because the washer and dryer were in the guest bathroom.  It's a small thing, I know, but still, I can't stand it.  I have monster machines.  They sit up on pedestals and stick out pretty far from the wall, and in short, irritate me to no end.

My house does have other attributes though.  It was built by a master cabinet man and the woodword is incredible.  It's got a great layout, and a great yard, and in short, it is a great house.  I love it...a lot!  But the bathrooms...sigh.  

I finally decided what I want to do with the washer and dryer.  I want to move them to this little room that was build into the garage and make it into a laundry room.  Great plan in my mind.  This was the room I've recently remodeled to be by stained glass studio.. to those who follow this blog.  I finally got around to calling the plumber last week, and he came around today.  My master plan was to run the hot and cold water through the ceiling.  "No problem" he said.  Then I wanted to run the grey water out into a leaching field under the grass into the yard (because the garage sits on a concrete slab disconnected from the crawl space under the house).  "Big problem", he said.  Then he took me though a really elaborate plan to dig trenches, to connect into the sewer system...yada yada.  Then came up with other (really good mind you) idea to re-figure the guest bath and master bath into a totally differnt configuration and keep the existing plumbing (leaving me without a bathroom for at least a couple of weeks and tens of thousands of dollars).  Net:  my simple idea of running the drainage of my washer and dryer into the yard were... for not.

I refused to give in.  This was my plan, and it made sense, so I did some research.

I seems that in June 2009, Governor Ted passed a law to say that grey water (i.e. from laundry, showers, and bathroom sinks can be used to irrigate your lawn as long as it's underground.  Brilliant!  That's just what I wanted.  However, It's up to the department of Economic Health to come up with the ground rules (forgive the pun).  So, I think I've found the ground rules they've put in place, but they're not approved or trickled down to the plumbers who would have to implement it, nor are there permits available to purchase or approve.

This makes me think there's a market for this kind of service, or at least will be in the future, don't you think?  It seems to me, that other like minded individuals, who want to conserve water, and use their grey water for something other that sewer charges...perhaps water their lawn...might want to know of a company who specializes in this service.  What if there were a company who specialized in modifying current plumbing of their homes, or even installation of new homes to benefit from this law that was put in place in 2009.  My plumber didn't know about it.  I had to send him the websites I'd found.  I'll bet there's a way to make this budget beneficial.  I'll bet I could do it.  This is my thought of the day.  Hope it gets you thinking!

Cheers!!  And it's nice to be blogging again!!  Talk to you soon!
Athena

Hello again my friends,

Today, I'd like to talk about massage therapy.   Some people love to get massages, some people don’t (I don’t understand those of you who don’t, but I accept that you have your reasons).

 

A few years ago (around 2002 I think), I needed some right brained activity to counter-balance the left brained corporate world.  I consider myself a pretty equal balance of logical thinking and emotional intuition.  It’s a weird blend, but it works for me until I get too much of one, and not enough of the other.  I’ve always been told I’m good at giving massages.  My mom had me start massaging her shoulders when I was about 5.  I’ve been told multiple times through my years that I have healing hands.  So I decided to enroll in Massage Therapy school.  I honestly thought this would be a slam dunk easy thing to do.  Boy was I wrong!

 

I have so much more respect for massage therapists now (I’m going to call them MT’s from now on to avoid having to type it out constantly).  Getting my license was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  It took me two years, taking night classes to finish.  Did you know that in the state of Washington and Oregon (maybe for other states too),  MT’s need to know every muscle (that part makes sense), every bone, all the names for all processes (bumps) and fossas (indentations) on every bone (there are hundreds if not thousands),  every type of cell you have in your body, every part of every cell in your body, every neurological pathway and synopsis,  the pathology of all major illnesses, palpation of all the above,  all eastern medicine methodologies (is the liver more wood or more fire?; which meridians will affect the bladder, and where are all the acupressure points along said meridian, etc, etc).  You have to accurately palpate a muscle and identify where the problems are (is the problem not actually in the muscle but in the facia?  Is it really a trigger point on the opposite side of the body that’s the culprit?)  What’s the best treatment and why?  You have to fill out medical forms written in a way a doctor can understand them.  This must be done for every patient, on every visit, it’s the law.  The list goes on and on and on.   It’s really hard.  Then you have to know business, of course.

 

Well, I got through it and got my license.  I loved doing that.  I again learned a couple things about myself.  A) I don’t really like massaging people I don’t know.  They might come in from a day in the sun and dirt and don’t bother to take a shower first; they might come in with negative energy (they leave feeling great and I am completely drained); they might have a different understanding of what an MT will massage and what she won’t etc. ; and I’m way too much of a capitalist to do fluff and buff massages, I like making money.

 

However, I still think there’s tremendous opportunity to open my own “Medical Massage Office”.  It’s a proven fact that people who get regular massages have considerably less health issues.  I think Insurance companies should include massage therapy as a “maintenance procedure”…like getting your teeth cleaned or well baby appointments.  If you can bill insurance companies, then the money is worth it, even for a single MT.  

 

Let’s do the math

 

• Fluff and Buff spa MT ~30-50K per year (MAYBE)

• Medical MT ~125-150K per year

• I own the facility and run the business.  

• I have 6 MT’s working for me.  They are salaried at 75K (better than they’re going to get anywhere else),

• The business nets 300-450K…not bad even after paying overhead and taxes.

•  

My license has expired now, but the idea is still alive and kicking.  

 

This experience of learning about the human body and its intricacies birthed several other business ideas which I’ll post in a future blog.

 

Until then,

Athena Taylor

How do you tell the difference between a business idea and a hobby?  I love to create stained glass.  I think there’s nothing quite like taking an idea in your head and making something sparkly, and magical out of it.  I’ve been doing stained glass for about 8 years I guess.  And to be honest, I probably did have some intention of selling them at some point. 

 

I’ve never really considered myself an artist.  I don’t draw particularly well, and I’m not a genius with color combinations.  I mean really, I have to shop for clothes by mannequin.  I walk into a store, see a mannequin wearing a nice combination, and buy exactly what’s on the mannequin.  So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that I could take my rather rudimentary childlike drawings, and with the magic of glass, make them into something fantastic. 

 

But I discovered something about me.  Once I create something that’s uniquely me, I have a very hard time selling my little art children to people who don’t  know me.  This is me, after all.  It popped out of my brain and is now an entity in the world, and it can’t go to just anybody.  Therefore, I give them to people I love, people who inspire me, people who happen to be in my head while I’m creating the piece (I figure this is God’s way of telling me who the piece belongs to). 

 

Because of this, I would have a very hard time making a living doing stained glass.  Hey, is this where the term “Starving artist” came from?  Are all artists like me, and only become famous after they die?  And, because it didn’t come from their brain, their families have no compunction selling off their lifetime of works and becoming rich?  I’ve never really thought about it that way before, but I’m sure there’s something to it.

 

In any case, I’ve provided pictures  of some of my pieces in the photo section.

 

Oh, by the way...please send me comments on the blogs you like the best.  I’d also be very interested in some of the ideas some of you have come up with over the years.

 

See you later alligator.

Athena Taylor

Many years ago we started a family tradition, like many families do, of decorating Easter eggs.  But not just any Easter eggs my friends.  Oh no, given the over-the-top creative bend of my family, we pulled out the scissors, construction paper, glue, tissue paper, tape, staples…. and that first year, we created Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, various barnyard animals (pigs, ducks, chickens, etc), Indian maidens, little china men in rice paddy hats.  It was quite the assortment let me tell you.  We’ve done this day long exercise several times over the past years, never once taking pictures, as hard as that is to believe. 

 

This year, while going through the plans for Easter (everybody was coming to Oma’s house…i.e. my house) I decided that I wanted to pull this tradition out of moth balls and let it live again.  This year, I planned for a garden theme of eggly creations.  I bought the necessary supplies and then me, Stephanie (daughter), Mom (my mom), and Brody (2 ½  year old grandson… (who incidentally lost interest after about 2 minutes) commenced to making lady bugs, bumble bees, dragon flies, flowers, birds sitting on eggs in nests, frogs and butterflies and caterpillars.  It was truly wonderful, and so much more fun for Brody to discover among the real flowers outside and in the crooks of small shrubs than just plain eggs. 

 

This makes me think…probably no surprise to you by now, what a good idea this would be to have kits available for people to buy.  We could refine the patterns, print them onto the appropriate colors of construction paper, give a little bottle of glue or double sided tape, and they can supply their own scissors….hmm….

 

I’ll bet we could have several kinds of kits.  Famous characters, cultures around the world, barnyard, and our recent creation - the garden theme.  How much do you think it would cost?  Probably not much in materials.  The exterior packaging would be the most expensive component.  I’ll bet people would love to do these. 

 

Oh I can hear you out there, those naysayers among you.  You could say “well, people could just buy construction paper and do it themselves couldn’t they?”.  Yes, oh skeptical ones, in fact they could.  But would they?  Have they?  Have we not always had construction paper.  I know it’s been around at least since I was in kindergarten, so let’s say 40 years give or take.  And yet, this isn’t a common practice?  Why?  Look at the patterns for jack-o-lanterns, you know those ones where you poke pins in the pumpkin very close together through a pattern that’s been taped to the outside of the pumpkin.   When the pumpkin is lit it’s amazing.  Can anyone cut a picture out of a coloring book and do this?  Yep.  Do they?  Nope, they buy the jack-o-lantern decorating kit.  Thus is my logic anyway.  So there you have it, another business idea notched in my belt for a future “someday”.

 

I’ve uploaded pictures of the egg garden for your enjoyment!

Easter Egg Pics  

Until next time

Athena Taylor

As I pass through my life, day by day by day, I wonder about things.  Who am I, why am I here?  Life is a funny thing, full of beauty and love, but so full of distractions and greediness for more, that a person can lose sight of the truly lovely and beautiful.  I watch people, busy and important, filling their days with things they think are important, things that will get them more things, and less time to enjoy life. 

 

I’m tired of searching for more.  I want to be content in the present. I want to slow down, to enjoy free time without guilt of things I “should” be doing, to love fully and completely, to laugh with all my heart, to pay attention to the miracles that happen every moment of every day.

 

I wonder if it’s age that makes me think this way.  Is it a life passage we all arrive at?  Is it…could it be…finally…wisdom?  Is this what wisdom is?  Is wisdom knowing what matters, and what doesn’t? 

 

My ambitions and yearnings of youth have left me.  The things I took for granted before, I now realize have the most value. It’s those things that I want to enjoy and love, but those things have left me too, of my own doing, in my search of more, better, greener, sweeter.  I’m left alone with my thoughts, to contemplate what I’ve done, and the choices I made.  I can’t change the past, but I can make my future.  I can try to understand and accept myself, even though I made mistakes.  Love is the key, as it’s always been.

Athena

Here I am in NY....again, and as always, have come up with a new...based on old...idea.

A few years back, my daugher went on a one-two month escapade through Europe with only a couple thousand dollars in her pocket.  Armed with her 50 lbs backpack, and a girlfriend to keep her company they migrated from London, to Greece, to Amsterdam, and I'm not sure I want to know where else.  But in her journeys, and infrequent e-mails to me, I really started to feel heartstrings towards every student on their own personal journies. 

I travel... a lot...you know that by now, so while Steph was on her escapade, I was traveling too, but I saw things differently somehow now that my baby was out there in the world somewhere at the whim of fate and good fortune.  I saw people through her eyes...somehow. 

So one day I was in Amsterdam.  A collegue and I were having dinner at some nice restaurant, in some nice "plein" (means square or center in Dutch).  Being a German restaurant, they gave me much more food than I could possibly eat, so I had them package it up, we both did.  We caught the tram back to the hotel, when I met a young student who was also touring Europe.  I smiled at him and struck up a conversation.  I told him that he reminded me of my own child on "European tour", and that I'd just come back from a very nice restaurant, and had left overs.  I told him that she were you, I'd give them to her, but she's not here, so would you like to have these left overs?".  He smiled at me, and politely declined.  Just as I was about to get off the tram, he quietly came up beside me and asked me if I wasserious, to which, I handed him my doggie bag and gave him a hug, then got off the train.

I will remember this experience for the rest of my life, it shaped me, and I've been doing this ever since when I have the opportunity.

So, here I am in NY.  I went to Carnegies Deli last night for dinner.  WOW.  I'm usually very health concious...but when in NY, you must have a Corned Beef Sandwich, and NY cheesecake, so I chose Carnegie Deli....infamous!  WOW, I tell you what WOW.  I ordered a Reuben sandwich and a piece of cheesecake.  The waiter said to me "I'll hold off on the cheesecake order until after you have the Reuben...it's pretty big".  I said, "really?", to which he said, "I'll bring you extra bread".  When he brought me this sandwich....WOW!!  It was open faced with about 4 inches of corned beef, cheese and saurkraut piled on, over, and around this plate...in fact, I couldn't see any bread, so it's good that he brough extra.  I made myself a sandwich, then another, then another, each one at least 2 inches high...bigger than anything I'd ever fed my family.  So feeling pretty good that I'd only eaten a third of my dinner (i.e. one huge sandwich), I ordered the strawberry cheesecake.   WOW!!!  This thing was HUGE!  The actual cheesecake that they'd cut my slice from was 12" wide X 3" high and the slice was at least 4" wide...so roughly a 2 lb slice of cheesecake including the 4 grapefruit sized strawberries they piled on top.  I should have taken a picture of both of these works of art, they were amazing. 

I did take a picture of another poor soul who ordered a simple corned beef sandwich (not a reuben).  I watched him look around this sandwich for a good ten minutes...not knowing quite where to start with it, or how to pick it up, or if he should use a knife and fork.  Then is friend came to meet him and started taking pictures of it too.  I'll post the picture of it later....really, it's over the top. 

I could only eat 1/3 of the cheesecake, and still had two full sandwiches sitting in front of me, so I asked for them to be packaged up.  Now remember my friends, I'm in a hotel, with no fridge.  So I did what I do, and on the walk back to the hotel, looked for someone to give them to that might be hungry.  I found a police officer, who was talking to someone.  I explained that I was from out of town, and that I had all this extra food...(he thought I wanted to give it to him and said he couldn't take it).  So, I backtracked a little, and said, "oh, ok, well, I was hoping you might know of someone who might need a good meal tonight, since I can't take it with me"...he got it, he started thinking, and looking down the street, and was about to say something when the man next to him said "I know of a homeless person!, he took my bag and was down the street in a flash".  Job well done!

Today, I had to go to Buffalo  By the time I got back to NYC, it was 7:30PM and I was not in the mood to wander around NYC looking for some metro place to eat, so chose the hotel restaurant.  I picked the healthiest option.  1/2 a roast chicken (I can only eat 1/4), so again, had half my dinner left on my plate.  So again, I had them package it up, I put in a roll, and some butter to round out the meal.  The person at the next table asked me what I was doing.  I explained my plan to him, and why I do what I do, he was amused I think, and said he'd be interested to know the outcome after I went down the street to give out a meal.  I came back up 10 minutes later...foodless.  I'd found some young girls on a bench, I explained to them the situation, and that I wanted to give this food to someone who might be hungry and did they know anyone?  They said they did, and took the food. 

Now, having said all this, my new friend who was waiting in the bar for a report, needed even more proof.   So together, we took a pizza and some chips and guacamole down to the street together.   We found someone on the corner of a street, explained that we knew HE wasn't homeless, but maybe, being a local NY person would know of someone who needed food.  He took the food and we went back to the hotel.

Now, this whole dialogue is meant to lead up to an idea...a good one.  What if all business people did this?  Business people on expense accounts, who get too much food for dinner, instead of having it thrown into a land fill, what if they have it packaged up and saved for the homeless.  I understand that most people won't want to wander the streets to give out their leftovers to people, but what if restaurants collected the leftover meals and the shelters came and collected it after hours?  How many people would that feed?  I personally fed 4 people in 2 days.  How many people?  I'm thinking thousands in a single city, every single day, and it didn't cost anybody a single penny that they didn't already spend on the company dime.  Why not?!

I think this idea should be called Hand Away Left Over Project (i.e. the Halo Project).  Anybody in?

Hello my friends.  Today we go back in time…way, way, way back. 

 

Home Team Network, Inc. was my first attempt at formalizing one of my business ideas.  This was back almost 20 years ago.  My children were just babies and I was working as a secretary for the corporate headquarters of a very large, very well known, non profit organization in Tucson Arizona.  Computers were a relatively new experience for me…they were relatively new to most companies in fact.  Ah, the days of DOS and floppy discs that were really floppy…hence the name “floppy disc” which eventually became hard little discs, but were still called floppy’s…never understood that, but I digress.  These were the infant days of the internet too, which I really took to.

 

Anyway, the story for my light bulb goes something like this:  I had been working on a project for months getting ready for a huge annual event.  On the day that I was supposed to go into work to compile all these various documents on my computer (this is before network shared drives too so they were sitting on my computer, and my computer ONLY) and send to them in a neatly packaged and printed bundle to the print shop to make a bazillion bound books for this event, I got up early and took extra care to look really nice that day…it was a BIG day and I was going to arrive early to be super prepared.  My young son wandered into my bedroom and said those dreaded words that send goose bumps up and down every parent’s spine, “Mommy, I don’t feel good”.  I checked his head, no fever.  “You’re fine baby, you’re just tired”, to which he promptly threw up all over the floor.  OH NO!! Not today!!  After a major panic attack running around the house with my heart pounding in frustration, my husband rushed home so I could be to work …late. 

 

All I could think of as I was speeding into work was “There’s got to be a way for young parents to be able to stay at home with their kids and still get their work done to make money”.  In fact, why would it be limited to parents, why couldn’t people with disabilities, or people who are older, or people who just don’t want to go into an office be part of this idea?  They probably have the skills, but for some reason can’t go into an office every day.  Why couldn’t there be a company who hired people to do work on their personal computers, from their homes, then they would send in the final product back to a QA (quality assurance for those not familiar with the acronym) office, then it would be forwarded on to the company who requested it?

 

What kinds of companies would be interested in such a thing?  Medical Billing?  Medical Transcription?  Secretarial services?  Book Keeping?  My mind was racing!  How would I do this?  The workers would need to be independent contractors so that they were their own business and I wouldn’t have to manage payroll and taxes.  They would then need to access some local listing of open jobs that I had procured, they would have to bid for for the jobs, the worker would have to be pre-qualified and approved, and the job would be released to them for completion.  Then there’d need to be a way for them to submit the completed jobs back to me.  I needed a database!  But how do I connect my database to the internet?  I never did figure that out.

 

I got my first break when my husband came home baffled over a report that had been hand written and calculated by the office girl.  He was the foreman for a construction company and they recorded hours used by employees against jobs to show profit/loss.  He was certain the report was wrong, all his jobs were losing money, but he didn’t know how.  So I built a mini database for him.  Every day he’d bring me his employees’ time sheets and I’d record them in the database.  At the end of the month, I generated a report for him to show the profit/loss, which he took into work.  When the boss started yelling at him for still losing money, my husband pulled out the report I had generated, and said very calmly “not by my records” and showed his boss his fancy dancy computer generated report.  His boss loved it so much that he hired me to do every employee’s time sheets this way.  Of course I needed a bigger computer, but with my first job under my belt I felt confident I could make this idea work.  So I borrowed money from my in-laws, for the new computer and incorporation fees, and Home Team Network, Inc was born.

 

Now long story short, I found it hard to make any more sales of my services and had to go back to work after a month.  My husband’s boss hired me as office manager.  One of my job duties was “recording timesheets”, so no need for HTN’s services.

 

Today, this idea is commonplace.  You can’t open up the newspaper without hearing about companies outsourcing their back office’s to India, or China, or Brazil.  I personally work from home every single day that I’m not traveling.  There’s nothing  can’t do from my desk in my house that I can do in an office.  My company saves money on office space, and I get to take a shower, have a snack, or go to the bathroom whenever I want to.

 

I think Home Team Network was a fabulous idea and had I known what I was doing, or understood how to sell my services, or just put a little more into it…had I just waited and been patient...it would have taken off.  Maybe it was just before it’s time, like I said, the internet was very new. 

 

Hope you liked this little piece of Athena History.  It’s off to New York next week…ta ta

On my latest business trip last week, as usual I stopped by the book store to pick up reading material for the plane.  I used to look for novels or something as far removed from business as possible, but these days, I’m reading all the business books I can get my hands on.  The book that caught my eye wasn’t the most practical of choices for a seasoned traveler.  Has anyone picked up a copy of “The Snowball – Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”?  If you have, you know full well that this book weighs about 2 pounds…in soft cover!  Two pounds may not seem like a lot, but when you’re traveling and stuffing the thing in your laptop case and hauling it around all over the country, it can feel like about 20 lbs after awhile.  But I bought anyway.  This is quite the tome.  It’s got about 700 pages in 6 point type with pages as thin as a bible.  I’m only on page 135.

 

But what I’ve learned so far (he’s only 28 in the book on page 135) is that Warren and I are very much alike!  Imagine that!

·   Warren was very shy when he was young…..I was too!

·   Warren sees patterns in things….I do too!

·   Warren is great at math….So am I!

·   Warren started his first business when he was 6…So did I!

·   Warren is constantly thinking up new business ideas…So am I…obviously!

·   Warren had a paper route….So did I!

·   Warren hates manual labor….So do I…oh yeah!

·   Warren hated public speaking…So did I!

·   Warren doesn’t dance well…neither do I!

·   Warren never really caught on to the dating scene…me either…it baffles me.

·   Warren is always looking for new ways to make money….So am I!

·   Warren loves to make money….SO DO I!!

 

Now, I know it’s a bit of a stretch to think that me and Warren are kindred spirits that took different paths down the road of life, but heck…a girl’s gotta dream!  If Warren can do it, I certainly can figure out a way to make 1% of what he’s managed to do.  Warren is worth 50 BILLION dollars, 1% of that is 50 MILLION Dollars.  So even if I only managed to accomplish 10% of my goal, I’d have 5 Million dollars in the bank…hmm…I could live with that. 

 

Find someone who’s successful and do what they do.  Think he’d agree to be my personal mentor?  Me and Bill Gates, disciples of the great wizard of Wall Street.

 

Anyway, it’s a pretty good book, from what I’ve read so far…I recommend it.  Here’s the link if you want to check it out:  http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/snowball/

 

Until next time my friends….Athena

Does anybody remember going with their grandparents to the donut shop?

 

I do.  I remember going with my grandma to Winchells donuts.  Winchells had the most wonderful display of perfect donuts in the world.  Their raised donuts were perfect, at about an inch an a half high, with a perfect white ring around the center of the donut indicating they were raised properly and not greasy at all.  The glaze was so thin and so perfect, that when you bit into the donut the glaze cracked off and landed on your fingers, and your on your face, and your lap, but oh, how delicious they were.  Light and fluffy, slightly sweet, and totally irresistible.  Of course we got a dozen assorted donuts, so glazed yeast donuts were just a small sampling of the dozen.  Let’s see…going through the box, lets talk about the cake donuts, my favorite to this day.  Those were about an inch high, with a tight star in the center.  For those who don’t know, a perfect cake donut doesn’t have a hole in the center, it has a tight star in the center where the batter draws the center to a close, (only yeast and buttermilk donuts have a hole).  These high, perfect cake donuts were the decoration central of the display case, frosted with chocolate, or vanilla, or strawberry, then they had sprinkles, or chocolate chips, or coconut or spiced crumbs or nuts…maybe drizzled with something wonderful too, they were fantastic!.  Then were the old fashioned donuts…yum…my daddy’s favorite..  Old Fashioned’s are buttermilk donuts, that, when cooked properly, make a flower of a donut with the way they crack open in the oil.  Cooked properly, they aren’t greasy, but totally and utterly delicious…I love them.  Buttermilk bars are the same batter, but a bit denser  I like them too, but give me a lot of milk or coffee to wash them down with.  I can only eat one or two buttermilk bars, vs. ½ dozen assorted donuts.  Let’s not forget about the cinnamon rolls and twists!  My mouth is watering!!

 

To be honest, I haven’t had donuts for years.  You just can’t find a properly made donut that is truly irresistible anymore. 

 

I had a business idea (of course), a few years back called Bunz Bakery.  I wanted a nationwide chain of “Winchell’s like” donuts, muffins, etc..  I wanted a place where grandparents could bring their grand children so they could experience something truly exquisite, like I had experienced with my grandma.  Since filled donuts are my favorites (have you noticed yet that they’re all my favorites?), I wanted fillings to be my specialty and completely customizable.  Customers could decide what kinds of fillings they wanted (whipped cream with strawberries;  Bavarian  cream with chocolate mousse; cherries with chocolate mousse; blueberry and lemon; you get the idea….like an Ice cream cone at 31 flavors, you could choose the fillings for your donut instead of having to choose from the display case.  In my mind, I’d have a wall of different fillings, you tell us what you want, and we fill ‘em up!

 

My slogan…..”You will love…..Bunz….Have some!”  I even created a snazzy jingle.

 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I used to be a professional baker long ago.  I worked in various grocery stores (I’v e worked at a majority of them).  Back when my children were babies, I worked the midnight shift in the bakery so that I could save on child care.  I was hired as a cake decorator, but my skills and job responsibilities increased to baker after some time.  At 5AM, my job was to make sure the donuts were fried and ready for the 6am crowd who came into the store for the office goodies.  For those who’ve never worked in a grocery store before, most grocery stores get their baked goods shipped in as frozen dough.  This allows them to say that it’s freshly “baked”, although they didn’t actually have to mix anything in an effort for a “consistent” product.  Therefore, the yeast donut dough is shipped in little frozen dough circles (more of a hexagon really).  The baker, then takes the allotted amount of frozen dough circles out of the box, puts them on a fry rack, let’s them defrost, puts them in the proof box, then frys them.  This process makes a donut, a greasy, flat, ugly donut, but the donut of today.  Years of experience taught me that perfect donut making (both yeast and cake and buttermilk) is a true art.  I love it. 

 

Here’s a tip:  You should never, ever, buy a yeast donut that doesn’t have a skunk ring.  This is a very white ring around the horizontal center of a donut, AND the donut should be at lease 1 ½ inches high.  This will indicate a NON-greasy donut and perfect raising and proofing (hard to find).  You should never, ever, buy a cake donut that doesn’t close completely in the center with a star.  You should have NO hole that you can see through in the center.  You should never, ever, buy a buttermilk donut that doesn’t have a perfect fanned flower (buttermilk donuts have holes in the center, unlike cake donuts).

 

Back when my business idea was fresh, there was another donut company that had just IPO’d.  They were such a hype, everyone was talking about them.  I couldn’t wait to try one.  I drove 300 miles for my first one, waited in line for over an hour, I couldn’t wait for my first bite anticipating the best taste in the world……I’m sorry to say, it was horrible.  It was greasy, and way too sugary, and tasteless  But people were crazy about them…why?  I didn’t understand.  How could this possibly compete against my fantastic memory of a donut shop bakery. 

 

Suffice it to say that I thought I’d missed the donut boat, so I canned my business plan and moved on to something that sounded more promising.  Someday, when humans decide that a little bit of sugar and dough cooked in oil can be a very good thing on occasion I’ll revisit this idea.  It’s a great one.  I can see the commercials...small faces pressed against the display case, grandma smiling down at them as they labor over which ones to choose to put in the box, the smell of cinnamon and hot coffee wafting through the air (ok, this would be hard to do on a commercial, but maybe you could have a shot of a family walking through the door with their noses in the air), old men sitting at the counter enjoying the ambiance, with the closing line “It’s time to re-remember…you will love…Bunz….have some”.

OK guys, I’m sitting here on a plane at thirty seven thousand feet in the air, writing my second blog to you.  I don’t remember if I mentioned this to you before, but I’m a corporate employee.  I work for a very large corporation, working as a cog,in a very big wheel.  I’m successful, by most accounts.  I have a job most people would love to have.  Do I love it?  Nope.  Am I grateful for it?  Sometimes.  Did I ask the universe for this?  You bet I did.  I get almost everything I ask from the universe, and I definitely asked for this.  The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. 

 

Back in 1997 I was working for a young start up internet company where I met my best friend Denise.  You’ll hear of her often, so I’m mentioning her now so you become acquainted.  Denise was my mentor.  She’d just come from corporate San Jose, to little laceName>HoodlaceName> laceType>RiverlaceType>, and she was sheik, stylish, and everything I wanted to become.  She taught me how to dress, how to behave in business meetings, how to wear my make up appropriately for business, and how to present myself to executives.  She used to tell me stories about business travel overseas to England, and other exotic places.  At the time, I didn’t have a single stamp in my passport…let’s face it, I didn’t have a passport, and I wanted that so badly I could taste it.  She used to tell me, as did many people, “it’s not what you think it is…you get to know the airports really well, but not the places you’re going”.  I didn’t listen.  So I asked the universe for this gift, this gift of business travel.  I got it…You know what?   Denise (and everyone else who told me) were right, beware of what you ask for. 

 

I wonder sometimes how I got here.  I don’t have a college education.  I don’t have deep skills that make me proficient in one thing or another.  Yet here I am.  I work for a very large corporation where people vie for the jobs (I never did, I was acquired into this company…twice).  I teach young ivy league grads how to do what I do, though I have no ivy hanging from my armpits, nor do I believe it requires thousands of dollars of education to do what I do.  For the most part, I think these youngsters are over educated, and lacking in life experience.  How did it start for me anyway?  Business started for me when I was very very young.

 

My mom was awesome.  She was divorced, and going to college, raising two children alone.  She’s always been my role model.  Whenever I wanted more money than my $1 dollar a month allowance would allow, she’d show me how I could turn that $1 into $5 by opening up a kool-aide stand, or painting rocks, or making jewelry and selling them on the laceName>San DiegolaceName> laceName>MissionlaceName> laceType>BeachlaceType> boardwalk.  Now remember, this was the ‘70’s and such things from children were encouraged at the time.  Today, they’d insist on a business license, but at the time, it was a wonderful thing for kids to do. 

 

One day, my mom was approached by a neighbor who was returning some of my baby pictures.  I guess, in my quest to find sellable items to make money, I decided that I was a cute child and “who wouldn’t want pictures of me?”.  So I went door to door selling my baby pictures from my mom’s picture albums.  A neighbor of ours bought my whole stock, then gave them back to my mom (for cost I think), for which my mom took back all my profits.  I only mention this because I think the spirit has always been in me.  I’ve always wanted, and searched for ways to make it on my own.  I come up with ideas for businesses daily, or at least weekly.

 

You might have noticed the tag “Entrepreneur Du Jour”.  My daughter named me this.  Her husband’s family commonly asks her “So, what is your mom’s business idea this week?”.  It’s actually a fair question, because it’s probably different every time they ask.  I have great ideas, and someday, one of these ideas will become a reality and then the next one, and then the next one….like a row of dominos.  I believe in every single one….except maybe the baby pictures.  Just you wait……