Sunday Morning and my paper hasn't arrived yet. I'm sucking down my first cup of coffee and about to sift through orders from yesterday. Got lots of orders, I can tell it's Christmas time. Spent most of yesterday cleaning and painting the walls of the new store. I need to get my orders taken care of this morning and head back over to put on a second coat of paint and finish the trim. Also, I need to take a 'before' picture of the store before I do too much more.

I realize I've posted about the store, but I haven't given a good location description. Let's put it this way, it's a PERFECT location, for the northern San Joaquin Valley anyway. It sits on a very busy intersection of Woodland and Carpenter roads in Modesto. The Address is 1300 N Carpenter Rd, Suite B. Carpenter Road is locally known as "Motorcycle Alley" for those in the business locally. The building is primarily a Chevron Station in the front with a small 24 hour food mart. I am located next to the food mart in the front corner on Carpenter Road. I've got 1640 square feet. Now the good stuff: 8 blocks south on Carpenter is the local Harley Dealer, Mitchell's Harley Davidson, 500 N Carpenter Rd---2 blocks south on Carpenter sits the local Honda-Kawasaki Dealer, Honda of Modesto, 1120 North Carpenter Road---1 Block North is the local Ducati Dealer, Modesto Ducati, 1408 Carpenter Road. Now the competition, Cycle Gear is located at 1521 N Carpenter. Not really competition because they sell pretty cheesy stuff for a high price, plus their parking lot is hard to get in and out of. Renegade Classics is located about 3 blocks away on Woodland in a VERY subdued location that is difficult to see, get into, or get out of. Renegade sells pretty good quality stuff, but for a pretty high price and with a limited selection. About every item listed on my site will be represented in the store, plus some I don't even sell anymore. I may not have all the sizes, but I can get them.

While working on the shop yesterday, at least 45 motorcycles entered into the parking lot to either gas up at Chevron or get money from the Wells Fargo ATM which is located in front of my store. Anyway, my opening date is scheduled for Dec 5, HOPEFULLY!

Tomorrows list:

Recheck on the business card order with the new address
Insurance
County business change of location paperwork
Security system meeting at 10:00 AM
Process orders
Pay bills.
Computer register? Make a move to either get new or use what I've got.
Inventory.

Later

Death of the Phone Thong. I mentioned this in my last post, but here it goes again. The phone thong, that unique little cell phone holder for women, may be a thing of the past. http://www.discount-leather.net/Ladies/Phone/ I called my supplier to order another 100 or so phone thongs and they had none. I was told, in order to get more, at least 500 had to be ordered and then they needed to be manufactured (in China), then shipped to the USA. Now, I'm a little business and I hate to say this, but I've already got WAY TOO MUCH inventory. I was hesitant about ordering another 100 phone thongs, but now I'm thinking "...after so many years competing against all these people selling this neat little item, perhaps now I can corner the market?" Just a thought. I've sold literally thousands of these thongs over the past 4 years, and there is still a pretty good demand for them, but I've got a lot going on right now and do not really want to slip the cash out the door for 500 items that may take me a year to sell. Maybe after the first of the year.

Yesterday I started in earnest working on the shop. I was assured that the shop was mine even though I haven't signed the lease. Today and most of the next two weeks will be spent getting it ready to open. I can probably get it open before Christmas, just not on the day after Thanksgiving (darn). Sales started picking up yesterday just slightly...a sign that Christmas is here. I knew Christmas was here just based on the price that advertising costs. Each time you click on one of those Google ads, ching, ching, there goes another dollar for a chance of a sale. Yes, that's right, right around $0.80 to $1.20 per click. The prices on the site or the lowest they have been since I started this business back in 2002, so don't miss out, go see us at http://www.discount-leather.net .

So long

Let me blog about some fun stuff instead of work. It's raining outside, kind of glum and I am feeling a little burnt. I updated the site at 6:00 AM with a great deal for anyone...see http://www.discount-leather.net/specials.html. I updated last night too..I'll write about it maybe tomorrow...perhaps "Death of the Phone Thong!"

Anyway, some of you may know I used to own a yacht. A lot of people motorcycle for fun but I really loved my yacht. The yacht was a casualty of the divorce and opening a small business (I needed the cash and yachting is quite expensive). The picture of the yacht is above left. She is a 36 foot Hunter Marine Hunter 36 made in 1981..one of the Cherubinni designs. A great old boat with good speed and stability. Anyway I listed the yacht with a broker to sell and after a year of no offers but a monthly tongue lashing from the broker asking me to pour money into the boat to make it more saleable...I fired the broker. The day after he was fired and his listing expired, he brought me an offer. Too late, I had found a friend (Ron) that wanted the boat. I might note, that I owned the boat 5 years and sold it for $13,000 less than I paid for it, and I had spend at least $10,000 on it just fixing it up. Anyway, he got a great deal and I get to pretty much go out on it any time I want. My friend has put about $15,000 into the boat and it doesn't look like the boat above, but is now dark blue with green stripes, it has new sail covers, sail (Kevlar racing), furling, cleats, traveler and on and on.

So anyway, I get a call a while back and I hear that the wildlife is going nuts in Monterey Bay, California, where the boat is located. My buddy Gary tells me that they had run into a massive amount of seals feeding in the middle of the bay and in the middle of the seals, a Whale...the biggest he's ever seen surfaces. He swore it must have been a Blue Whale because the spout (exhale) lasted for about a minute and a half and it took at least 3-5 minutes for the dorsal fin to appear, and another 3-5 minutes to see the tail. Now they were about 60 feet from this. Then he tells me the week before, they had cruised over to Santa Cruz and saw a humpback breach about 300 feet away...not once, not twice, but at least eight times! Breach for those who don't know means jumping out of the water straight up.

Now I figured, I'm not going to miss another one of these wildlife journeys, so I invited myself to the boat the next Saturday. What a day, for October, it was stunning. Actually it was hot! We were all (four of us) in shorts and t-shirts and in the morning we were sweating. So we left Moss Landing Harbor at about 10:30 AM. It's hot and there is a little bit of wind blowing and the water is really smooth, about a 1 foot north swell and at that time no wind waves at all. Up goes the Spinnaker and off we go. The wind picked up around 11 and down came the spinnaker and out goes the jib. The wind picked up to about 15-20 knots and we were flying at 6.9 knots steady towards Santa Cruz. In short, a great day and we did see wildlife. Some dolphins followed us as we neared Santa Cruz and jumped out of the water behind the boat. As we neared the point out side of Santa Cruz, we saw the first spouts. A couple of whales came up, about 50 yards away, spouted then dove. They were heading towards the boat, but they didn't surface again until they were about 100-125 yards behind the boat. At about 3:00 we turned about to head back into the harbor and then we saw them, a pod of humpback whales. I had the helm at the time and I steered towards them. They were swimming and we kind of merged to within 45 feet of each other. There were at least 7 surfaced that we got on film...perhaps I can get the film and post later. We moved off and later saw a few more whales off in the distance, but all in all, a great day.

I got a call a week later from Capt Ron. The most amazing thing...they were out the week before and ran within about 30 feet from a pod of Orca, at least 8 and the most amazing thing...one gave birth right in front of them. There were 12 people on the boat that day and again, it's on film. I miss my boat.

Here is a pic of my dear departed first mate when I owned the boat:

She's looking down into the living quarters from the cockpit. Here she is being navigator for Capt Kent (that's me).

'60 Minutes' Crew Remembers Ed Bradley

A Great Look at Ed Bradley.. A great journalist I have watched for years. He will be missed.

The Dems took over Congress. Now if they only hold the promise to get rid of corruption, we will all be better. Put a lot of new items on the web site last week that I thought would have picked up a lot of business, but guess what? I think it's going to be a tough Christmas.

I went into Orchard Supply Hardware on October 30 and low and behold, the place was decked out in Christmas decorations all over. BEFORE HALLOWEEN! I've been a few places last week and almost all retailers have their spots ready for Christmas. But this last week has been a slow one on the web. Very few orders and not just for me, but my sources tell me that orders have slowed to a trickle everywhere, even E-bay.


I've almost got a brick and mortar going. I say almost because I got the keys last week, but still no lease to sign. Part my fault...okay, I was way behind in my financials, lackluster sales since last March had me trying to market the website and not keep up with the accounting stuff. Anyway, if things go as planned, I should be open before Christmas. The problem with not having a lease is I can't do any work in the shop. It needs paint, counters, carpet, cash register, inventory, offices built, signs constructed and hung plus a lot more. Without a lease, I'm hesitant to spend a dime on it. In the meantime, my storage area of leather goods is overflowing as well as my new apartment is getting filled with leather also.

I can't seem to get my Phone Thong Supplier to send me any thongs either. What's up? I sell about 700 phone thongs a year, and I'm having a tough time getting my stock replenished.

What's new on the leather front? A lot of us that sell good quality leather, i.e. heavy cow or buffalo skin are pretty ticked that people are selling pigskin and calling it cowhide or even Naked Cowhide Leather. We've purchased a pair of "naked leather chaps" from a competitor of mine that lives in Arkansas but uses the term Branson on his store and guess what? The Naked Leather Chaps are in reality, Pigskin that is sealed. How do you counter this kind of stuff? It makes web retailers look like a bunch of shysters and unfortunately, it tarnishes the industry for everyone. I've heard, but haven't seen yet, that one of my suppliers is going to take out a Google Ad exposing the problem and at the end of the ad, he will list reputable dealers that sell his products.