Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

Customer conversations are pretty dark today. While looking the place over I heard three separate conversations at different tables at the same time about different people who got shot.

Someone abandoned cassette tapes on the reading shelf. They're all like weird religious knock off music aimed at kids. Do kids even know what cassette tapes are these days? Can you even buy a walkman in a brick and mortar store anymore? The whole thing seems ill-conceived.

Entrance to the building is not on the same street as the address if you did happen to know the address. Poor communication skills seem to be a core value as the receipt I got also has the name of my business wrong because why bother listening (or reading it off the check) when you can just make some shit up. They're also claiming I'm purchasing the extra bins, but those bins remain property of the city so purchase isn't exactly the right word there.

Needed to deal with the Dept. of Public Works today, but it's as if the city has gone out of its way to be as unhelpful as possible. The letter letting me know that I needed to contact them because of changes in how business recycling pick up is handled says that to do the thing we need to do, call a phone number. Call the number, they say they can't do anything over the phone, I have to stop by the office in person. Address not volunteered, also not any of the addresses on the letter.

Cat recommends petting the cat.

Gave the school 3 boxes of brewed coffee, each from a different place so they can spread those out to different country displays if they want, 3 sleeves of sample cups, and an empty jute sack that one of the coffees shipped in.

Got a call from the principal at one of the local schools. They're doing some kind of an International Day thing tonight and they decided they wanted coffee so I'm donating a few boxes of brewed coffee that they can use.

Got a mention in Daily Coffee News. If you click my name in the tags at the bottom of the story it brings up a few articles I wrote a while back. https://dailycoffeenews.com/2020/02/26/coming-in-march-the-north-central-roasting-summit-at-the-coffee-lab/

Credit union upgraded their login so it's no longer split across multiple pages. They say the old thing had become outdated, but the truth is that this was just a weird thing banks did that never genuinely improved security.

Coffee delivery is in. Credit union sent a check stomper in case the new publishing company somehow gets a physical check from anyone.

Looks like I've got another day of staying late to finish up some work at the shop today. I've been home late multiple days in a row already so the cat will not be pleased. I'll pop home for lunch soon, but it's not the same.

My new publishing company just got its sales tax ID number. This means I'll be able to sell my book in Wisconsin without doing tax evasion.

This morning there was a cat on the back porch looking into my kitchen. The cat that lives with me was meowing at it through the door.

Bought another couple thousand pounds of coffee. I wanted to buy more but some of the stuff that I want isn't in the country yet so hopefully they'll remember to call me back in a few weeks to sell me the coffee once it exists.

Sat down with a marketing class today and told them about all the marketing that we don't do for the shop, answered their questions. Every so often groups in a class like that end up doing a project using the shop as inspiration. We never end up using stuff they come up with, but that's fine.

The cat is chirping.

It took a few rounds of editing but I think I'm happy with the new section now.

Yesterday I noticed that chapter 2 was missing a section it needed so that's what I'm writing today. It's also a good excuse to use the word, ephemera.