Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

Tasting my next limited edition coffee. Production test batch turned out the way I expected. It's on the lighter side of a dark roast and has a flavor reminiscent of sweet apples if you imagine that both in coffee and good.

Updated the shop's web site. This change removes the note that we're closed Thanksgiving, adds the holiday closed/closing early info for Christmas and New Years, and provides information on what we're doing for our traditional start of the year charity fundraiser. Online sales January 1-3, 20% of the the total (including shipping) is going to Racine County Food Bank. 20% of in store and phone sales January 2-3 (we're closed on January 1) will similarly be donated.

The cat is wet. Why is the cat wet?

Trying to get loan pre-approval for a car (I found a low mileage thing that's basically the same as what I've got only 8 years newer and with a nicer feature package for less than double what the repairs on my current car would run) and it's being complicated because I'm self employed so my "pay stubs" don't have any useful information on them. My sister lost my tax filings (she's in charge of the office stuff) so I'm waiting on my accountant to send an electronic copy of those.

2020 is the year that just keeps giving. Car repair estimate came back and it's far enough outside of my budget that I'll just be replacing the vehicle. Ugh.

Car needs a new engine. My mechanic is looking for a couple options but pretty much no matter what I do this is going to cost substantially more than I was hoping.

My favorite part of a post getting popular on fedi is seeing everybody's cool domain names.

It's time to pet the cat.

Cocoa in Christmas packaging arrived today.

I keep that one at work and a different more basic keyboard at home because I tend to destroy laptop keyboards these days (nobody makes a good laptop keyboard anymore) and the rest of the computer is still fine.

One of the delivery drivers liked my keyboard. It gets a surprisingly large number of comments from people who see me using it, but all I did was go to a store, try out all the demo keyboards, and bought the one I liked the feel of best (which just happened to be some gamer keyboard with fancy lights [I leave mine to animate a rainbow across the keyboard] and a bunch of features I'll never use).

Web site update won't be today after all. We're just waiting on a return email from the food bank to make sure they're good with our plans and hammer out the final details, but the tentative plan is that we'll donate 20% of all sales on January 2-3 (and 20% of orders through the web site January 1-3, the shop will be closed on the 1st) as well as having an easy way for customers to leave food and money in the week prior.

Finalizing plans for the New Year's fundraiser. Should have a web site update with that information before the end of the day.

cat: what you're doing is great, but have you considered that you could be using this time to pet the cat?

And my grant application (WI DOR program for small businesses) got approved today, so that's helpful.

With the boxes that went out today, November has officially been my best month yet for sales through the web site. The previous best was back in April. It's also more than 9 times November web sales last year.

This time of year when it's getting dark before I get home I wonder if the cat would prefer I keep a light on for her or if she's fine being alone in the dark.

web site/app idea that I won't make, please steal: catchat - meet adoptable shelter cats in your area