Presidential debates start tomorrow. But can they really call it a debate? With all the preparations and rules, it's really more like alternating speeches. A real debate would 1. Include all the candidates (including 3rd parties) 2. Allow the candidates to address eachother 3. Eliminate all of the rules 4. Put the candidates on the spot.

I don't even want to watch this mockery of democracy. Here's what will happen: John Kerry will try to cement his "new" positions (you have probably all noticed how he has tried to differentiate himself in the last few weeks). George Bush will attempt to string together coherent sentences, but fail miserably. I already know who I'm voting for (Kerry - I'm just voting for him because I really don't want Bush to serve a second term).

Grrr. You know what's kind of annoying? Having no cable and no internet. You know what's really annoying? Having cable and internet, and getting snatched away, forcing you to stay on hold with the stupid company for hours. And the company, which we will call "Brighthome Networks", taunts you with the audio from the TV news while you are on hold. Then you're stuck sitting in front of the computer, because that's where the phone is, with nothing to do except write in your stupid blog. Then it gets worse; the "Brighthome Networks" representative tells you that there is no outage. It could just be a glitch in the system, so they can't help.

The third storm is over. We are hurricane veterans now. This one actually wasn't that bad. Again we were evacuated and went to my parent's house. Friday night Em and I joined my parents at temple, which was just as boring as ever. We sat around all day yesterday and came back to the beach tonight. The power stayed on at both houses and we only lost cable and phone for about 24 hours.

My Holga came! I've been having lots of fun shooting random stuff. I was hoping to take some pictures of the destruction, but there wasn't much where we live.

We took our boards off the windows right after Hurricane Francis, but left them on the balcony until two days ago. Big mistake. Two days ago, Hurricane Jeanne was predicted to go to the Carolinas. Suddenly the track changed, so we spent most of the day today getting sand bags and dragging the boards out of the garage and up the stairs.

I'm sick of hurricanes. I really am. They just need to stop. On top of everything, Em and I just spent over $200 re-stocking our fridge. We are going to take all the food and video equipment to my parents house to "hunker down". That's another thing. Those stupid news people and city leaders are always telling everyone to "hunker down" because the storm is "bearing down" on us. Is hunker even a word? What the hell does it mean? It sounds like the position you get in to take a dump.

Emily and I ordered two Panasonic DVD recorders from Jr.com for our business. One with a built in VHS deck, for small orders and one with a hard drive for large orders. The latter was suppose to be here two days ago. It wasn't. So I called the company and it turns out that the unit was discontinued three days ago. I think that if I hadn't called, I would have been waiting for it forever. We had to cancel the original order and purchase the newer version, which won't come until next week.

Yay! More hurricanes! The National Hurricane Center is saying that Hurricane Jeanne is coming. It already killed almost 2000 people in Haiti. I can't wait for it to come here!

Sprint must be the worst phone company ever. They are completely incompetent. A family of monkeys would do a better job. I have spent the last couple days trying to get a business phone line. Yes, days. It would have been easy if any other phone company provided service in the Longwood area. But unfortunately Sprint is the only company we could use. They won by default. Sprint was the first company I called, because my parents use them and the lines are already set up. I spent 3 hours being transferred from one person to the next. It was like a human game of "Hot Potato". I was given at least 5 different numbers to call and transferred to no less than 10 different people. No one could answer my questions or transfer me to someone who could. All I needed to do was set up the stupid business line! Eventually I spoke to a manager and thought I had it all figured out.

What I really wanted was a forwarding line, a phone line without a physical location, which forwards all the calls to a secondary number (my cell phone). This would allow us to keep the phone number consistent when we move. They said that Sprint does not offer this service. Today I called back to make sure everything was set up correctly. It wasn't. They gave me a residential line! I canceled the order and hung up. Surely SOME other company will provide business phone lines in the area. So, I did an internet search and called every small, no name company I found. No luck.

Emily suggested we sign up for a 1-800 number instead. She called MCI and got the info. Before making a decision, I called Sprint Yellow Pages to make sure we could get a free basic listing with a 1-800 number (all business lines get a free listing). After being transferred another 50 times and calling 5 more phone numbers, I found out that it was going to cost $25 a month for a basic listing, $40 for a bold listing and $200+ for a business card sized ad. Those charges, plus the 11 cent per call charge for the 1-800 number put us over budget. Sprint was our only hope. So, I called back and braced myself for the onslaught of new phone numbers and transfers. This time I got lucky. I reached Andy at the Central Florida Sprint location and got exactly what I wanted. He set me up with a forwarding line (Sprint actually does offer the service), an easy to remember number (407-681-4DVD), and got me into the Yellow Pages.

Saturday I went to Dexter's in Winter Park with my family to see Marc Schwartz's band play and to drop off some tapes to Jill. They were playing mostly cover songs of classic rock, and my grandmother loved it. She was up front next to the band singing and dancing, having a great time. It was hilarious! She came back to the table singing "I love rock and roll".

I went to the Surf Show with my mom and Emily yesterday. It was at the new convention center, which was absolutely enormous. The show kind of sucked this year; there were less vendors and a lot less buyers. My cousin Arthur, who owns a jewelry booth, said he would be lucky if he broke even. Even the skateboarding sucked. Usually they set up a half-pipe and bring in some of the top pro skaters; this year I was excited because they had both a half-pipe and a street course. I watched the street demo and the skaters were no better than you would see at the local park.

After the show we drove around Maitland, Altamonte and Longwood looking for apartments. The one in Sable Point is still at the top of our list. Can you beat 1000 sq ft for $690? We tried three different restaurants before finally finding one that was open. Why is everything closed on Sunday night? Whatever, we ate at Bonefish grill and it was pretty good.

We are in business! Our equipment arrived, we set it up, and started work on our first conversions. It is very exciting. Friends and relatives have given us some good feedback and ideas about the direction of the company. Videotaping the life stories of the elderly and creating DVDs for their families, was one of the best we've heard (thanks Jill).

I ordered a Holga camera. I stumbled across some online galleries of photos from the camera and I was amazed. Of course, you could get much better images from an expensive medium format camera, but I love the moody/dramatic shots that are possible with the Holga.

Our equipment is suppose to arrive at my parent's house today. Exciting! Hopefully it doesn't get stolen off the porch. Em and I are going to get our occupational license in a little while. I hate this endless string of paperwork. They certainly don't make it easy for you.

We opened our bank account last week, but we can't use it until we get the license. And we can't get the license any time soon; they are running late because of the storms. Not much else is really going on. I'll write more when there is...

I finally returned to the beach after a week long evacuation. The house is in good shape, except for a couple missing tiles under the roof. The rest of this area didn't fare so well. There are roofs missing, walls destroyed, power lines everywhere and signs smashed into buildings. Emily and I wanted to leave the boards up until after Hurricane Ivan, but the first night here we slept until noon, because the room was so dark. Yesterday we took off the boards.

We bought all the equipment for our new DVD business and set up the bank account! It ended up being less than $2000 for everything. We should be able to pay off Emily's loan without a problem. The apartment hunting has been going slowly. We went back to the Echelon apartments downtown and saw some places in College Park. The only requirement is that it's not a small crapper, like in DC.

I have spent the last few days at my parents house waiting out the storm. And it's been a long wait. Emily and I got here on Thursday. A mandatory evacuation was set for Friday in our area, but we had already spent most of the day preparing the house, so we decided to beat the traffic. The storm was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Because it had slowed to a crawl, it didn't come until early Sunday morning. We spent most of the time playing cards, eating and being bored off our asses. The storm didn't seem that bad. It came in waves, with a band hitting every couple hours. It caused a lot of damage because it was over the state for so long. It stormed all day Sunday and half the day today. I have been trying to call the information lines in Volusia county for hours. Finally I got word from one of our neighbors that our building looks OK.

My grandmother has been stubborn about the whole thing. She didn't want to come over during the hurricane. Between bands yesterday, Emily and I went over there to check on her. She didn't have power or phone lines, and she still refused to come over. Finally we convinced her to go out to eat with us tonight. We had the now routine after hurricane meal at Too Jays, before Emily and I went to a movie. We saw "Paparazzi", which was just as stupid as it was entertaining. As we pulled into my parent's driveway, a huge black bear spotted the car and walked around the side of the house. Needless to say, Emily and I were terrified. I put on the brights and pulled up to the front of the driveway, to see if he was gone. He wasn't; he just stood on the side of the house licking his lips. I honked until my parents opened the garage and we both ran in

Yea! More hurricanes! I just love hurricanes. All the panic, worry and endlessly changing predictions. Yesterday, Emily and I spent four hours at my favorite place in the world, Home Depot! It was great, just sitting there waiting and waiting. I can't think of anything I would rather be doing. We were waiting for shipments of plywood to come in, so we can board up the windows. I wish we could have waited longer. A couple guys, who obviously don't know the meaning of fun, tried to cut in line three and a half hours after we got there. The people in line behind us informed Home Depot about the party poopers and, after a few tense moments, they were sent to the back of the line. I was jealous. Why couldn't they send me to the back? We purchased 5 boards, pulled our car around and waited while the guys loaded it on our car. An old man pulled up next to me and stopped directly on the foot of one of the guys. He stayed there for almost 30 seconds, while everyone yelled at him to reverse. Finally he did, and the guy limped off. Hope he's ok. Today, we are going to prepared the house and head back to Orlando. I can't wait for the storm to come knock out power, so we can live like cavemen. It's going to be great

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!