I have spent the last couple days at local supermarkets trying to get people to answer my little survey questions. Danielle, our marketing consultant, said that we should make up a survey to see if our business is viable. So far, I've gotten a very positive response from the potential customers, but not from the supermarkets. Yesterday I was asking the store managers before giving the survey. Four out of five places said that I couldn't. Today I just stood in the parking lot until I got kicked out. Danielle said that at least 20% of the potential customers should say that the business is viable. After two days of surveying, about 90% have given a positive response. Good sign.

The other day I was driving down I4, headed for the Flea Market, because Lindsey wanted to do one last redneck thing before heading back to DC. We got off at the Lake Mary exit and I watched in horror as a white Lexus skidded off the road and flipped down the hill, before stopping in a ditch. Other cars seemed to ignore the accident. Maybe they didn't see it, or didn't believe what they were seeing. But, I speed over to the edge of the ditch, threw my phone to Emily to call 911 and ran over to the wrecked car. The passenger window was laying on the ground next to the car. I poked my head through the broken window, not knowing what to expect. There was a girl no older than 20 looking terribly afraid, but uninjured. She was shaking badly and looking disoriented. I asked her if she could move all of her limbs. She could. She tried to open the driver's side door and I tried the passenger door. Both were stuck. Lindsey approached the car and we both helped her out through the passenger window. She checked out the car and said, "my parents are going to kill me." We assured her that the car would be the least of their concerns.

Lindsey has been here for the last couple days. We have had fun, going to the beach and playing games, but Emily has been sick. She feels tired and achy all the time. I am trying to get her to go to the doctor, but she has too little energy to even find a doctor and she won't let me call. We started working on some more Excel spreadsheets, which mostly involve adding and predicting costs and profits. It's been hard, though, because we generally have no idea how much we will be spending. The biggest problem is figuring out how much to budget for advertising. Luckily we have a meeting with an advertising executive from SCORE on Thursday. That should help clear up much of the confusion.

Like my new menu? Flash is a pain in the ass. I spent hours trying to figure out how to change the links and get the buttons to work. Finally, when I got it all figured out, I had to change everything around so the movement would look right. And I had to remake all the buttons, so they would be consistent. I guess that's the price you pay for internet stardom. Last night my sister spent the night over here. She got in around 5 am and Turtle wouldn't stop whining. I let him go see her when she got here, but that wasn't enough. He just stood by the door scratching and crying. I had to take him downstairs because he was keeping us up.

Today Em and I went to my parent's house around 4. We wanted to stop at the Flea Market on the way, because she had never been to one, but it was raining and the traffic was so bad that we didn't have time. Emily and Lindsey went to Calmar before dinner (another place Em has never been). They were only suppose to be going there for a few things, but when they got there, Lindsey pulled out a huge list and went to town. Emily got annoyed because she was running around looking at shotguns and stuff instead of getting the things on the list.

We went to Seasons 52 for dinner. On the way there, mom was neurotically reading magazines. She recommends the magazines for my dad's waiting room at his office; when he brings them home, she feels compelled to read all of them. Apparently she has been falling behind on her reading, so now she is stressed out trying to catch up.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is... I received a call from a company called Elite Marketing (or something like that). It started out with a recorded message, saying that I had been chosen to receive a free computer, digital camera, and cell phone. All I had to do to claim my prize was press one. Being the extreme skeptic that I am, I pressed one. A couple seconds later, the phone was answered by a man claiming to be a company representative. He told me that the only thing I needed to do to claim my prize was give him my bank account information, so he could charge me for tax and shipping. I asked him how the company could stay in business just giving away free products. What's the catch (besides having to give my bank account information)? He informed me that there really was no catch and said that the company was simply trying to give me free merchandise with nothing more to buy. At that point, my BS detector really went off. I told him that he was full of shit and hung up. He called back a few minutes later and cussed me out. I told him to get a real job; scamming people for a living is illegal and I feel sorry for both him and the people he was scamming. After a few more minutes of cussing, he hung up. I tried calling the police and the phone company where his line was registered (I looked it up online), but no one seemed to care. Oh well, I hope he gets caught soon.

Yesterday, Emily and I met with our Business consultant, Skip, from SCORE. He basically told us about everything our business plan lacks: a marketing plan, a carefully thought out break even point and various other business things we hadn't even considered. Our next meeting was with our accountant, Steve Cohn. He helped us immensely with basic accounting, business structure, licensing and tax issues. We flipped a coin to see who would be President and who would be Vice President / Treasurer. Emily won. And we thought of a name: Big Picture DVDs, Inc. Last night we played poker with my parents, sister, grandmother and Abe. I won.

Abe and my dad gave us a ton of suggestions and ideas. We should set our prices a bit high, maybe $25 per tape (instead of $25 per DVD, with as many tapes as would fit). A mall kiosk would be a good way to have a physical presence and attract customers, as well as reducing our marketing costs. The pick up / delivery idea would not work well, because we would spend most of our time on the road and ruin our cars. Finally, they gave me a long lecture on why I need a haircut. I should look more professional. People would not trust their tapes with a shaggy looking fool like me.

Today I had another meeting with the consultant, talking about more wacky business terms and local demographics. He arranged for us to meet with a marketing expert next Thursday. That should be very helpful. Em and I know the least about marketing, and according to Skip, we have a marketing driven business. The marketing person also teaches a class, and will sometimes use actual businesses for her class projects. Maybe she could use us!

Who wants to hear about the hurricane? Well I'm going to tell you anyway. After much debate, Emily and I stayed here (at the beach) during the storm. We had originally planned to go to my parent's house for dinner, but I decided that it would be better to stay (the storm was suppose to be worse in Orlando).

I tied a rope around the furniture on the balcony, to prepare for the storm. When the first band hit, the sky went black and the wind violently shook the house. Emily and I grabbed the dogs and ran downstairs. We came back up after about 15 minutes and watched the news as the storm came closer and closer. The cable went out about 30 minutes before the eye was suppose to hit. We relied on my dad for weather updates. When the eye wall hit, we huddled in the bathroom reading the marketing book. The sliding glass door in the bedroom buckled violently and felt like it was about to break. The screen door ripped off and wedged itself against the balcony. We had to open the sliding door and grab the screen door, to prevent it from breaking the window. The storm passed shortly after. The next day, we drove around the city and marveled at the destruction. Luckily the only thing we lost was cable TV.

Emily's new treadmill was delivered around 1 today. It's got lots of cool stuff like a fan, a CD player, an automatic ass kicker (to help keep you motivated). We haven't used it yet, but I bet we'll be running marathons before you know it. After that we went to an art supply store and bought a bunch of painting supplies. It was pretty expensive, but we got the last laugh. They sold us canvases for about $20 each, but after we're through with them, they'll be worth millions.

This afternoon, we read our marketing book for a while and took a quick nap (which was not the result of reading the book). I tried to get ah old of Skip to reschedule the meeting, because I don't want to wait another two weeks, but I had to leave a message. I hate leaving messages. I never know what to say. The machine beeps and that's it. No time to think or anything. You're on the spot and you have to say something without sounding stupid. I probably failed miserably.

Yesterday Emily and I flew my kite on the beach (after breaking up our fixed and variable costs, of course). We had to wait around all day because it started raining just as we were about to go out. Finally the rain stopped and it was great, but not windy enough, so the kite kept crashing. We had fun anyway. And we went in the water too, but Em got scared because little fish kept brushing by her feet.

Today I made an appointment with Skip at SCORE to go over the business plan. We couldn't get an appointment until August 26th, so I'm going to try to meet with him outside of the organization. We spent most of the day at the beach with the puppies reading the Guerilla Marketing book. Very informative and lots of fun!

Our little business plan is rolling right along. We went to my parent's house last night and found out about 50 million little business things we hadn't though of, like insurance and what type of corporation we want to have. My parents gave us a bunch of names and phone numbers to call and find out more info about the various little business quarks. At least now we have things to do next week: lots more research. Today we are going to the Mall at Millenia so Emily can buy some "big girl clothes", stuff she can wear to business meetings and the like.

Emily and I have decided that getting jobs is for Clides. Plus we can't seem to find any. So we are starting a DVD creation business. Millions of people have old home videos lying around that they haven't watched in years because they don't use their VHS decks anymore. If we had a service that made it easy for them to transfer their tapes to DVD, we could make a fortune. I'm not going to give away the details, but the plan is solid and we are deep in the research phase.

In other news, Abe came over last night and we all stayed up till 2:15 to watch the space launch. It was great, I listened to the live NASA radio transmissions leading up to the launch, then we all went out to the beach and saw the rocket liftoff. I haven't seen a live launch in years. Very exciting. But I still don't understand the point of all this space research. What have we gained from it: Velcro, Tempurpedic beds and Freeze Dried Ice Cream? Please e-mail me if you know some real benefits of space exploration.