The last few days have been a whirl wind. Steve has taken every Friday off until the end of the year, and we're using that time to get some stuff done.
This Friday was a trip to Pedernales Falls. It was gorgeous. But we've had a lot of rain this week, so all the trails have been washed away. We weren't the only ones struggling to find our way back to the car park. One of Steve's photos.
Gorgeous.
And then on Saturday we went to the Austin Zoo. I don't have photos because we forgot the camera.
Now, here's the thing. I grew up in San Diego. I don't remember a time that my family didn't belong to the San Diego Zoo. My first job out of high school was working retail at the San Diego Zoo. A yearly membership for the Austin Zoo is the same cost of a single visit to the San Diego Zoo. San Diego, it takes upwards of 10 hours to see everything. And even then, you're probably going to miss out on a bunch. Austin? We spent 2 hours there, saw everything, and it probably took us a bit longer because I was giving the goats a scratch.
Funny thing is, I kind of liked the smaller zoo.
All of the animals in Austin are rescues. They're not leading any research or breeding the next generation, they're giving animals who had a pretty crappy start to life somewhere comfortable to live. It was sad seeing some of them. The male lion rescued from a junkyard in Alabama who was neutered so never grew a mane. The black leopard who... I don't know, but he couldn't walk very well. The capuchin who lost it's tail somehow. The entire pack of wolf hybrids, and the ones rejected by the pack, because people think having a "wolf" would be cool. Not to mention all the parrots from people that simply couldn't look after them anymore. And the lizards and snakes abandoned.
Ahh, I want a zoo.
There's a place I used to frequent in New Zealand called Staglands. Basically, a huge petting zoo. I would love to have something like that. Surrounded by animals? Giving needy animals a good home? Yes please!
At the moment, though, I'm still concerned with making this arts and crafts business work. Insert heavy sigh here. The problem is, every time we do one of these markets, we're lucky to break even on the cost of the market. And since we're so close to cost on each item, we're loosing money. But that doesn't stop people from being incredibly rude and insulting.
At the zoo yesterday, they had very simple, 3 inch dream catchers for sale for $17. I sell similar for $8. Handmade. I have the same size, but double dream catchers for $12. And then my other dream catchers, roughly twice the size, double, and it doesn't seem to matter what price I put on them, people want them for less. It's insulting.
That and the woman who insulted my sculpting ability. You think you can do better? Please show me.
Anyway, we're looking at putting more effort into the website and backing off some of these shows. (Honestly, the last one was $55 and we were lucky to make that much, the next one we were looking at is $200. I don't think so.) But that means that I need to learn how to list things, and update certain areas. Steve's going to try to teach me.
Again.
This is not the first time.
The trouble is that it's far beyond how I think, and Steve's not a great teacher. He gets things far too quickly, and after he understands it, he thinks about it even faster still. But he cannot slow his mind down enough to actually explain. My mind works much slower, which is one of the reasons I've always been a decent trainer. That, and I actually expect that people are not going to grasp the concept the first time. Steve figures once is as good as a hundred times.
So I downloaded the software he told me to. This is the message: Notepad++ v6.6.9 new feature and bug fixes:
1. Fix comment command bug that the comment symbols isn't set on the first column for Fortran.
2. Add python parson for function List.
3. Make icons' background colour transparent for functionList and projectManager.
4. New feature: Apply new file default settings on created new file (opened via command line).
5. Fix colour picker' chooser bug which does not work well.
Included plugins:
1. DSpellCheck v1.2.12
2. NppFTP 0.24.1
3. NppExport v0.2.8
4. Plugin Manager 1.0.8
5. Converter 3.0
6. Mime Tool 1.9
When you can't even read the the "welcome" message, you know it's going to be a battle.
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