Ray's Blog

Some background: My parents both used to smoke a few packs a day (before anyone knew the stuff was bad for you). About the time my brother was conceived (~39 years go), info was coming out about how it was bad for you and both my mom and dad quit smoking, cold turkey. Since then, they haven’t gone back and have a completely clean bill of health - that is important to remember for later in the story. This experience was fortified when my grandfather died of cancer from smoking when I was 3 years old. So, they have a sincere disdain for the tobacco leaf.

My parents returned from a trip to Texas where they were working on a project with our company. They stayed in an “extended stay” type of suite and every morning, they would take an elevator to go to the gym. And every morning the elevator smelled like cigarette smoke. After a past of smoking, they can’t stand this smell - especially right before a work out!

One morning, the elevator opened and there he was. The smoker. A small man, skinny, with a gray beard and mustache and an old floppy brown hat. In a gruff voice said, “I know I’m not really supposed to be doing this in here…” My parents didn’t want to join him and before the doors began to close, my dad said in a friendly but stern voice, “Oh no, you go right ahead. I already have lung cancer.”

The guy stared at my dad in a weird awe, eyes wide open as the doors of the elevator came together leaving him inside to wonder as he bathed in his own smoke.

After the doors closed, my mom turned to my dad & said, “Where in the world did that come from?” My dad just laughed and said that he had no idea. They decided to take the stairs.

I can’t imagine the thoughts that swam through that guys head.

There are several countdowns I’ve been keeping my eye on. So, here is a quick update in “countdown” form:

• 25 days: 1st Razorback Game of the season!! (Woo Pig Sooie!)
• 30 days: Larry’s El Dorado Opens (give or take a week)
• 51 days: Archery Season (deer season!)
• 81 days: 1st p90x is complete (this hurts)
• 91 days: Our baby is due!
• 91 days: Opening day of Modern Gun (deer season) — Oh no! I’ve double booked!! hm…
• 106 days: Thanksgiving
• 136 days: Christmas
• 143 days: The New Year! 2011

Time is flying! My days are full of project tasks and attempting to complete what I can so I get to bed by 2 or 3 am. For a short time, until the restaurant is up and running, I will be burning the midnight oil… I guess I’ll be ready to stay up late when our little one gets here in 91 days!

Exciting times!

Hey everyone. Given our new business venture, I’ve got a new blog up that I will be camping on and going BIG! www.PizzaFoodie.com.

There isn’t much there yet, but subscribe and check back. We are about to blow it up!

Another busy month has FLOWN by. I’m sorry that I haven’t posted anything lately. We are starting a restaurant in South Arkansas so time is scarce and I really can’t say much until all the papers are signed anyway. In short, Katie has retired from teaching and joined me in a family venture to start an investment group and a few small businesses. 

We will be moving in April to Three Creeks, AR (where my family is from). We are VERY excited to be joining that community and living in the country! Sooie & Scout can’t wait! We will be staying at my parents place until we build - which we hope will happen sooner rather than later.

As the business develops, I will post details, updates, and will let you know how you can stay up to date on each company. This blog will continue to be for my personal use (which will naturally overlap some). In the future, this blog will probably become more “business focused” because my focus will be almost solely on business. I might try to build a quick website and have a few themed tabs: business | outdoors | politics | technology | sports.  I think that would pretty much cover everything I blog about.

After we are up and running, I also want to be able to post helpful hints for others on how we started a business & a restaurant with little tidbits about what we learned in the process.

Online Journal
Many of you followed my search for an online journal that I could write, keep private info, take notes, tag, share some notes with others, & be able to use my phone or any computer to do it! I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for but I came VERY close: Google Notebook. It will allow me to do almost everything I wanted except GeoTag & Map - to be able to look at Google Earth/Maps and see a dot for each “note” or notes in a particular location. If I click on that note, it shows me what I wrote and exactly where I was - data can be grabbed from the iphone or a user can input a location somehow.

Another problem: when you edit a post, it updates the “edited time/date stamp” but does not keep a “created” time/date stamp. In other words, if you realize that on 3/1/2010, you forgot to “tag” a post with “Restaurant” so you can easily find it later and you add it, then it replaces the date with the date you added the tag, comment, or edit. I fix this by writing the date on the top line before anything else.

If they fix those two things, I will use it forever.

Thanks for checking in. I’ll post more after lease agreements and franchise agreements are all signed.