I've been enjoying myself perhaps a little too much recently, spending too much money and being too sociable. Saturday I met Amelia and Dirk and we stopped at Sambar, which remains one of my favorite little not-so-secret spots in Ballard. Sunday morning I went with Kazue and an out-of-town visitor of hers to the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery, and we stopped at Le Fournil for lunch on the way to Bumbershoot. We saw Quasi Nada after some fumbled attempts to find stages which had active performances, which was definitely a good find. Kazue and her friend headed off to Zinzanni and I later met up with Jennifer, who arrived as I was listening to the Crooked Fingers show, and we found ourselves snacking on Bumbershoot food just in time to watch Soulive, which had occasional guest vocals from Reggie Watts of Maktub fame and some cameos from a couple of east coast hip hop artists who ended their appearance with a few crowd-pleasing get-out-the-vote-and-get-Bush-out jabs. Later I met up with Kazue and her frend Yukiko again and we tried to make another stop at Sambar, but I didn't realize it was closed Sunday, so we ended up at the Chinese-apothecary themed Fu Kun Wu and each had a drink concocted with some potentially medicinal herbs. Even Monday, when I was running a demo at the Bellevue Uwajimaya, I skipped cooking and had a light meal at the I.D.'s Maekawa, and much later made a quick stop at Triple Door to say goodbye to Kazue's friend.
The fact that I'm able to plug so many spots visited over a two day timespan is probably a bad sign for my wallet, but I'll try not to wallow in regret.
On the business side, I need to head out to the San Francisco area is getting more urgent, so I think I'll head off later in the week or very early next week. I will hit a half dozen spots down there and do my best to get some initial orders. I had intended to meet up with my sales broker today, but when I arrived, I realized that Labor Day weekend extended through Tuesday for most of the showrooms down there, so I'm going to make better use of time this afternoon.
After wasting way too much time on web code for my yuzumura.com store, and I'm more inclined than ever to buy a partial solution so that I can get something up faster. I've lost a good four weeks trying to spin my own, and although I've got an almost usable solution, I just don't think I'll be able to afford the investment in time required for the harder work. I certainly predicted this as a possibility, but I guess my geeky stubbornness did me more harm than good. I've been writing code and simultaneously evaluating some off-the-shelf solutions that get me 99% of the way there and have hopefully been tested better. I remind myself again I shouldn't be wasting time on things that aren't going to be direct revenue drivers unless there's a bigger strategic purpose for doing so. Even when there is a big strategic purpose, the lost time isn't necessarily worth it at this stage.