Sage-Brush.

Only took me eight minutes to drive from my garage to the parking garage Wednesday morning.

8 minutes.

I used to give myself a half an hour.

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A few months ago, I learned that a space I've always coveted (much bigger) was leasing for a full 33% less than I'm paying, and without the dreaded Triple Net!

Today, I noticed another space that Linda and I seriously considered for the Bookmark was at a full 50% less than we're currently paying.

So while downtown Bend continues to have pretty good fill rate, the rents are definitely down.

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So Steve Jobs unveils the Apple Tablet. There's quite the reasoned essay on the members only comic book bulletin board about how this technology will be the end of us.

I figure by the time these things put us out of business I'll already be out of business.

Hah.

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One of the responses to Bruce's Wandering Eye column about "whining" over Measures 66 and 67, was from a guy who said he wasn't whining.

No. He was leaving Oregon.

Oh, good. You're not complaining about a call that didn't go your way, you are going to leave the game completely.

That's so much better.

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So, I've decided on a MacBook. I'm thinking the aluminum case, with the lit keyboard. (For all those times I'm camping , or something....heh.) Actually, I'm thinking there might be less confusion, since Linda already has a white MacBook.

Linda was browsing online about the Ipad this morning, and I could see the gleam in her eyes. She loves gadgets. "It's a cool gadget," I said. "But let's wait for them to work out the kinks and improve it."

Funny thing is, I'm the guy who reads a book, lists it n my "Book of Read", and takes it back to the store. The idea of a 'Pad' full of literature is actually....appealing. Can you imagine the buggy whip maker seeing his first car, and saying to himself, "Wow! That's Cool!!"

Meanwhile, I'm going to finally break down and finally, finally get a cell phone. Verizon, with a whatyoumacallit to get wireless for my new MacBook. If I'm going to have a bunch of young employees, I want them to have immediately access to me to ask questions.

So I'm going over this afternoon, to the Computer Connection.

Liz Courts has been doing my inventory for me, and she's been brilliant. See, when I bought the point of sale computer, I just assumed there was a universal data base that included all my product, and all I'd need to do is run my scanner-gun across them.

Nope.

Diamond had their database, that only went back a couple of years -- and they weren't exactly helpful in seeing that I need a much broader reach than that. (I don't just carry comics and graphic novels, but books and toys and games and and and....)

So I walked in the other day, and Liz was scanning things at a furious pace.

"How are you doing that?" I asked.

"Oh," she says. "I just went to Amazon, and use theirs."

"You know what, Liz? No one I talked to thought of that. The 'experts' at Diamond certainly didn't."

Apparently, so far, she hasn't found anything that isn't included in Amazon's database. Hah.

I told Aaron, my tech guy, what she did, and he laughed. Like I said, none of us bright guys had thought of that.

Anyway, I'm losing Liz to Portland next week. I tried to figure out a way to keep her in Bend, "so you won't have to go to Portland...."

"That's just it," she said. "I've been trying to get to Portland for years."

Sigh.

I'm back to my old strategy of hiring high school age, mostly. They can accept, indeed really only want, a few hours a week. Just means that our vacations will need to be in the summers when they can work more hours.

So I'm going to get my MacBook this afternoon, then have Liz show me what to do. She has done all the books and artbooks and I think most of the games, but we still need to do the biggest chunk, graphic novels....