Holding Pattern. I've been in this strange holding pattern since opening the store. My house, which financed most of the store, has a mortgage that resets in October. A lot of energy has been spent attempting to make enough money for both the store to survive and for the larger mortgage payment. The housing market crash has had a huge effect on this. The value of the house has tanked, but the economy has actually dropped down to my game store owner level. That's really bad. I ran the numbers this evening, and interest rates are now actually affordable for me, without a significant income jump. It's a sad feeling when you realize that success required a near economic collapse. It's not exactly time to pop the cork on a new bottle of champagne, since I'm screwed on the decreased value, but it means I'll avoid some hard decisions this Fall. Deal breaking economic crisis avoided.
Painting by the Sea. Next week I'll be going on one of my painting weekends. The family is out of town, so I'll be checking into a nice hotel in Santa Cruz to do some War of the Rings painting. I love Santa Cruz downtown, the .... scenery ... is so ... stimulating. Ok, it's the hot college girls. I can look, right? No, sadly it's the great bookstores. One of the fringe benefits of the store is oodles of frequent flyer miles, which pay for more rooms and trips than I could possibly take in a year. I would love to translate that into cash, but I blogged about what happened when I contacted Capital One, my points for cash credit card company. If you can avoid talking to a bank right now, you're far better off.
D&D Followup. I found running my D&D adventure (mostly a Dungeon Delve adventure) highly enjoyable. I'm pretty sure that next time I run a campaign, I'll be making my own adventures, although I'm told later WOTC 4E adventures are far more interesting than earlier ones. The down side was I didn't give the group enough follow-up time to complete what needed doing. I should have just narrated it, something like "You destroy the magic viewing chair and instruct the villagers to seal up the temple, thereby destroying any trace evidence of the magic portal. You safely return to your plane and have a nice apricot ale." Instead, with about ten minutes left, I gave them all the data and looked at them, as if they would somehow come up with the magic formula that would make it alright. Stupid.
Good to hear it about the next 4E adventures. Shadowfell is ok, but pretty standard (although as the cleric, the turning rules are sweet compared to AD&D (my last D&D version played)). I look forward to whatever the next one is.
ReplyDeleteWe were talking about this yesterday. Shadowfell and Thunderspire were written while the game was still in development, so they're not great. Thunderspire is better. I quit after the first mini adventure in Thunderspire. It just wasn't working. I'm told subsequent adventures get a lot better.
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest you come up to Humboldt to paint (the views from the town of Trinidad and other locales are some of the best I've ever laid eyes on), but then you mentioned the hot college girls, and I remembered we don't have those...
ReplyDelete...which is why I like destroying wood products with chainsaws and axes with the Logging Sports team. Takes the edge off, so to speak.
-Josh
I'd probably get a lot more painting done. ;)
ReplyDeleteYeah. Unfortunately, you're right.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you've considered this, but I've been happy with Amazon credit cards. I feel like the Amazon reward certificates are more "useful" than frequent flier miles or hotels as I try and use them for needed purchases and gifts.
ReplyDeleteThe Amazon card is from Chase, which has been very helpful so far. I've got our short term debt parked on that card at a very low interest rate.
ReplyDelete