the proverbial fan.

remember that time i told you that darwin was going out of town and it was time to get all of our ducks in a row as to ensure things ran smoothly and there were no crises (yes that is plural of crisis and yes i realize that it looks stupid) that i would have to handle.

well. we all know how that usually turns out. shit hitting the proverbial fan. and yes, you guessed it. shit.hit.the.fan.

that sure is some nice manure you have there good sir.

as i told you before, we had a big job that we shipped out a week ago. we were so happy that we got everything done on time and delivered without too many surprises. well, SURPRISE. they under-ordered or someone missed a take-off section. neither here nor there, but they were short material.

guess who got to solve that dilemma? if you guessed me, then you are correct.

want to know what involved solving that dilemma?

-schlepping heart pine
-reschlepping heart pine
-selling my soul to millwork
-reselling my soul to millwork
-bombing around kennesaw while my soul was at millwork
-SOOOOO MUCH CAFFEINE
-getting home at 630 on a friday
-getting up at 6 on a saturday
-finding out the finishing guy has a chest cold and you are now in charge of finishing 500SF
-praia rolling in compost heap waste
-showering off compost heap waste
-trying not to vomit while showering off compost heap waste
-schlepping more heart pine
-breaking into a 5 gallon container of velvit oil (crow bar and screw drivers involved)
-lining up over 500SF of heart pine (over 10' long)
-crouching around wiping on velvit oil
-trying not to die of velvit oil inhalation

you know the usual.

and you know what made it all worth it? well aside from satisfaction and pride: getting to do it all again today.

i really should add heart pine schlepper to my resume (right under fork lift extractor. i should also really come up with more glamorous names for these things.)

now comes the fun part. selling my soul to millwork again tomorrow to get 650LF of walnut run so that i can finish it tomorrow so that all this material can ship out wednesday morning bright and early.

wish me luck.

ciao. 


**picture

hangry.

have you ever done something and proceeded on with your life under the assumption that everything was kosher only to find out a week and change later that it in fact was very unkosher (whatever, totally a word) and you have approximately 12 hours to fix it? by 12 hours, i mean rewind time to when you ordered the product and make it correct then....

needless to say it is a losing battle. i am also not losing it very graciously (prettily, humbly - i'm not sure the exact term for what is happening to me right now), but whatever. it's monday. and mondays suck. it's inherent. it's in their dna if they had dna.

i've called no less that five steel places in an attempt to remedy this little huge little brain burp that i had. i could come to my own defense and say why i under ordered, but that just gets us a bed of excuses to lie in while the problem is still glaring us in the face like churchgoers on sunday when you are still drunk at brunch. (don't judge, you've done it too...)

yes churchgoer analogies during lent. whatever. read back to paragraph two: it's monday. and it's 1106 and i am about to get dangerously hungry or perhaps the lovely term known as hangry...look it up. it flows much better than grungry or the less popular crabungry (i may have made those other two up...)

back to the steel ordering process. it seems the forces have aligned against me. no i do not know the forces and no i do not know what i did to piss them off so horribly, but good gracious mea culpa times 80 bajillion. i have finally located the steel, but they can't cut it. superb. i only need to deliver painted and drilled steel tomorrow morning. that time machine is looking real nice right now. real nice.

i mean, i don't work for a steel company. i work for a lumber company. lumber i can do. steel? ha, not even close. i have to call and start with the "bear with me as i have absolutely no idea what i am doing. can you help?" line.  it takes a few around the circles and up the ladders and back around the circle before we are both presumably on the same page...

now like later this morning - because i haven't been up since 6 or anything - i get the phone call to find some hand hewn beams....that is a mission i can handle. call up and ask about lumber. SOLD. let's do this....finding it seems to be a growing problem. sweet. just add that to my list for the recipe of awesome monday makings.

perhaps i should scratch this whole blog post. it's probably best. eh. there are some witty comments in there.....

ciao.

**note for those of you who are of the less informed party: hangry - hungry + angry; grungry - grumpy + angry; crabungry - crabby + hungry

whiskey fridays. or wednesdays. or whenevers...

things around here have been going at approximately 90 bajillion miles an hour. yes, 90 bajillion. next week is thanksgiving....but apparently it's not a real holiday, because all i am seeing are christmas commercials. don't get me wrong, i LOVE christmas, am a toddler about it, but can't we at least celebrate the holidays in order without another infringing? hmmmm. can we? can we now?

with that being said, i feel as if it is 3 in the morning. i'm not tired or anything of that nature, but i feel as if i have been running non-stop. i had honestly no idea that it was friday today. not even a vague clue. that's pretty bad, because that means i didn't know yesterday was thursday. thursday is my favorite day of the week. go figure right?

we've sold our first piece of furniture...wooohoo - urbanreclaimed.com - find us, love us, like us, buy us....

i am steadily trying to promote us any way that i can. which involves no less than 3 changes to each website that i've made. including the biggest one of all and that was....A NAME CHANGE...wooo hooo. if you didn't notice in the last paragraph, but our name is now Urban Reclaimed. all of our websites can be found from the one above - urbanreclaimed.com.  i think i have now successfully made everything talk to each other. by i, i clearly mean, darwin's friend john....he helped get goodsie.com going. pretty sweet.

we are working on a logo, and i am trying to decide if i want to do a brochure. brochures are annoying and a pain in my ass, but i have not entirely ruled them out. we will see.

i just want it to be monday at approximately 10:00 am. that means i am dropping dar off at the airport and me, the coneman, and sweet praia girl are headed to the m...mmmhmm.  whiskey, food, and no responsibilities. yes please.

ciao.

'like' us on facebook (and mississippi wood trader), follow us on twitter (and me too), bookmark our website (and mine too)....selfless promotion right there...selfless

it's my party....

sometimes, i am a firm believer that the government is out to get me and perpetually ruin my day. today, practically solidifies my belief. now, anyone who is not just a total waste of space knows that taxes have to get paid. and, by "have to" i mean, totally voluntary but the government will more than likely hunt you down and make you pay out the ass for your mistake....which always makes for a fun day at the post office. (well maybe just for the people standing next to me, when i spaz out and remember yelling profanities in public places is frowned upon. so naturally i mutter them under my breath like a crazy person)

i used to get this letter all the time, telling me that my sales tax payment was late....well guess what GA DOR (georgia department of revenue for you that are abbreviation challenged), i've got news for you.

1. how can i file taxes for a company that doesn't exist?
2. i filed taxes once we got our lovely little "number" from you
3. i filed the back taxes on one page - that was apparently the fatal mistake but not my fault...that would be the quickbooks helper idiot
4. how can one owe more money than the company has made in total sales?
5. how can your dated letter be later than the date on the calendar?
6. my personal favorite - my file by date and my date of return receipt are a good 5 days apart, with the latter being filed sooner than date due...so how does that make me late again?
7. your website to pay sales tax is quite possible the most ill-designed thing i have ever tried to navigate - that's saying a lot because our website is pretty horrific....
8. i hate you
9. i like you a little because i get to you the word 'ergo' in my rebuttal, but then i hate you all over again
10. you waste paper, time and quite frankly, space.

this list could go on for quite a while, but i am sure you get the idea. this is no love-hate relationship. this is a hate-hate relationship. i've gotten pretty good at telling them they are wrong, but it is such a waste of time, not to mention paper. they inevitably send you a letter back stating they received yours and they will get back to you...still waiting on that one....so all in all it totals about 18 pieces of paper that have exchanged hands. stupid. like i said...total waste

so pay your taxes or don't. pay them on time or don't. it apparently doesn't really matter in the end if you are a law abiding small business (law abiding used loosely there) who pays taxes on time they will still try and find a way to screw you over.

oh. yesterday marked my 3 years at work. yes. 3 WHOLE YEARS. that means multiple things. such as:

-i've been out of college for 3 years
-i graduated from high school 7 years ago
-i'm almost 25
-this may be the longest relationship i have ever had
-i've been in atlanta for 3 years
-i have not gone insane (some days that is debatable at best...)

woah. just woah.

ciao.


p.s. check out the september issue of Atlanta magazine and see darwin. pretty cool stuff...

dancing hippos.

i know i've said this before, BUT i really really think we should abolish mondays. they are the absolute pits. they are always a disaster. never fails. monday comes along and wham, instant day ruiner. i do however have this theory that even if you eliminate monday from existence, some other day becomes monday. i've tested it. whatever day starts your "workweek" is monday, and it will about 76% of the time be terrible. it may not be terrible in the sense that lots of things go wrong (but they probably will), but it's almost a game of constant catch up. people want their stuff delivered early, or they want nothing to do with their order anymore, they needed their stuff the day they ordered it....you get the idea.

i also want to know if customers think we have the ability to just pull things out of thin air, because we most definitely do not. i can't just produce kiln dried, cut to spec, lumber. it's just ain't happening folks. ain't happening. plain and simple....i can barely keep up with what we do have in stock, much less keep up with finished lumber. which is precisely why we don't keep a great amount of finished lumber around. because invariably we will stock 6" material and people will want 5". instead of wasting a bunch of lumber and money, we keep rough cut material in the shop and cut it to order. makes for a much easier day. well, most days at least.

i understand the demand for getting orders done on time. i can promise you i really understand. there is no need to tell me. i get that people drag their feet right up to the last second and then they need faster than humanly possible. so i put a halt to that real quick and tell them the realistic time when something might be ready...MIGHT being the operative term there. a big ole fat might. i cannot make guarantees about scheduling. we've done it before and it always comes back to bite us in the butt. so we give you a ball park and then keep you updated along the way. it's MUUUUCH easier that way...

i also wish my boss would stop just disappearing. like right now for instance. no idea where he is. not even a vague clue. makes for a fun afternoon. we both left at the same time and i thought we were going to be arriving back at the same time...clearly i was mistaken.

oh mondays....

ciao.

p.s. i've decided to give this twitter nonsense a try. verdict is still out. it and facebook updates are beginning to take over some peoples worlds...i don't want to be one of those.