I have excuses though! ... Nah, excuses are worse than not updating. Let's just all look past this lapse in bloggage and move on to what's been happening instead. Food porn, good friends, business start-up frustrations, and a multi-million dollar FIRE .... at least it hasn't been boring (I guess?).
First Annual Union-Reunion of the Vortex Girls 2010
So Claudia got her Visa with days to spare, Alex got on her bus and the visit was pretty fab. There's a whole story about the trials and tribulations of them getting here that's pretty funny now that we're not living it *smirks*, but I think we'll save that until I can get the three of us on Skype together to podcast the sucker. It's funnier when we tell it talking-style.
Claudia was only supposed to stay for a week, but after a week we decided we were just having too much fun so she stayed for two. More trials and almost-disasters attached to that (long and the short of it, NEVER FLY WESTJET) but, again, we'll save that for podcast-y goodness (eventually). We watched a tonne of movies, ate masses of food (I think I spent almost every day in the kitchen cooking something), and the girls got close to three of my parentals (ie: Mum, Un-Dad, and Godmother). We did some sight-seeing, talked writing a lot, watched musicals and old Gene Wilder movies (okay, movie, but still -- introduced Claudia to Gene Wilder) and somehow went through all four box sets of Supernatural.
Business Plan Hell
So after the girls left, I went back to work on the business plan. Now I should have been almost done with only the financials and the Executive Summary to finish but then Statistics Canada put out the new State of Small Business in Canada report and I had to redo everything. On top of that I was reminded that I actually have to do three versions of the thing: one for LRCC, one for ILRC, and one for the Youth Entrepreneurship Grant Program with the Province (forgot about that one) .... and that last one also wanted 2 years of financial projections.
This is an issue with the design business. You really can't guess at when the contracts are going to come in. You can milestone it -- say something like "by Month Six we want to have signed 3 contracts at a minimum of $5000 each" -- but even though you have average windows for closing deals, the fact is that clients come when they come (and they often come in fits of feast and famine). That's just the nature of the beast, so I've been having the trickiest time with the financials and the projections.
It also doesn't help that Stat Can hasn't gathered E-Commerce/Website stats for small business since 2007.
But that's another story.
FIRE!
On Tuesday, 24 August, 2010 my building caught on fire. If I had a camera, I could have documented the aftermath but alas I don't so I'll just have to link up to news reports.
Around 4-something in the afternoon last Tuesday someone apparently did something stupid with a cigarette and destroyed something like 20 suites here at the Place Promenade. The alarms were going off for 2+ hours straight, and unfortunately since I'm kind of disabled (though I prefer the term "gimped") in the ankle department Honeywine and I waited it out upstairs in the apartment -- just hoping the fire wouldn't reach us. There's no way I can do 30+ flights of stairs while carrying her, so we really had no choice. $5-8 million dollars worth of damage later; the entire transverse between 410 and 400 has been destroyed, the Promenade itself was under water for 24+ hours, and I still can't get the stink of apartment complex burning out of my clothes.
Around 9PM things started to get really serious when the lights went out. Just gone. The water from putting out the fire apparently flooded the basement/garage and took out the transformer box that runs the whole complex.
As the daughter of an Electrical Engineer with Hydro, it boggles the mind still that they have the entire 4 building complex hooked up to only 1 box with no redundancies. *sighs and shrugs* Then again, you live here for any length of time and it becomes obvious the folks who built Place Promenade in the 80's cut corners to get it up. That's not Cityscape's fault, and I tip my hat to the girls in the office for how they're taking care of things now in the aftermath, but unfortunately it is their problem.
The electricity went "POOF!" around 9PM on Tuesday. Honey and I were stuck in the apartment, unable to leave and with no place to go even if we could for four hours. Thankfully I keep a regular old corded land-line phone in the bedroom so I was still able to call out (don't have a cell phone). Then the phone service died too and we were stuck in the dark with a half dozen tea-light candles and a torch running on 4 year old batteries.
Around 1AM the building manager finally came over the intercom to announce that the building wasn't safe ('is not sound" was the actual quote -- imagine the panic that caused) and that firefighters were going to do floor-to- floor sweeps to helps all of us left in the building out through the elevators (gotta love emergency generators). Those of us left? Mostly the disabled, people with pets who didn't want to leave them, and the disabled with pets (like me!). The Paramedics were too busy giving interviews to check me out, despite the fact that I was feeling really light headed and nauseous from the smell/smoke/fumes, so I just took Honeywine onto the Emergency Shelter bus.
Long story short, the first 3 floors of this building and the one next door have been gutted, there's water damage everywhere, and we had to sleep in Mum and Un-Dad's living room that night. We were finally able to go home around dinner-time on Wednesday, but the Cat was still traumatized for days.
Also, the smoke killed my tomatoes.
Very sad.
Luckily there were no fatalities and only 3 people went to hospital.
And Now?
Working on the business plan. Still trying to wash the stink of fire out of every soft surface in the apartment, and hoping to get Creastra up and running in September. Also have a tonne of work to do on a new online magazine project that will look great in the portfolio but, alas, won't generate any income until the magazine starts making some. *sighs*
For the last 2 years my best friend, Alex, and I have been planning a monster visit for this summer. Alex and I have been HLMs since 1999 and she's only been able to come up twice so far. The last visit was 6 years ago. Then, about a year ago our darling little darkling, Claudia, voiced that she would want to come up too if she could. A plan was constructed and the three of us have been working on making this happen for nigh-on a year now.
The only issue we've really come up against is that Claudia is a Mexican Citizen and the Government of Canada are, how to say, kinda douchey about Mexican Nationals visiting Canada. Claudia went to college in California and even then she didn't have half the trouble getting a visa to the US that we've had trying to get her up here for a 10 day visit. The amount of paperwork we've had to submit is insane, and honestly kind of disgusting. *shakes head* FIPPA (the Canadian Privacy Act) would make it illegal for the government to ask me for half the things they've asked Claudia and her family for.
We`ve literally been at this for about 5 months now, the application process I mean, and with the girls due on their respective plane and bus in only 11 days we were starting to chew knuckles with no word back yet from the Canadian Consulate in Mexico City.
That is, until today ....
Claudia is coming !She got her Canadian Visitors Visa! I am drowning in exclamation points right now!
Alex`s ticket was purchased in March. Claudia has her plane ticket and her Visa now. I`m madly cleaning the apartment getting ready for them. My Mum and Un-Dad are just as excited as we are!
In 13 days I`m going to get 10 glorious days with my two best friends in the whole world, and then another 2 weeks with Alex after the fact.
We`ll be sure to post pictures, videos and maybe even a podcast or two of the visit for y'all so don't feel left out now.
So this afternoon Mum and Torie came and picked up my propane tank to get it filled at Canadian Tire. Apparently, it was still half full, but I hadn't been able to pull any gas out of it since the middle of last summer. *frowns* With a full tank again and word that something was up with the Q though, I spent about 45 minutes this evening scrubbing that sucker down from top to bottom as I tried to find the issue.
It was a problem with the regulator.
I have tools though.
I fixed it.
Go me!
So anyways, tonight was the first BBQ of the season and I had Barbecue chicken breasts with chips and malt vinegar. So good.
Really, there are no words.
Why did we ever start cooking with electric ranges and convection ovens when fire tastes so good?!
Welcome to the new look and format of Mutable Dreamer. It's still my personal sandbox but the old school circa 2001 bloggity is no more. Well ... mostly. *shrugs*
I'm still playing with the layout/skin right now. I was going to hold off on reopening the site until I had it just perfect but right now I'm:
working on 5 sites (including one HUGE one with a firm launch of September)
finalizing my investor-friendly business plan
trying to find clients so I can pay rent come September
trying to find financing after being on Disability for 3 years
prepping for my friends Alex and Claudia to come up in 14 days as of tomorrow
... and just generally trying not to go insane with all the work. Mutable Dreamer getting a killer layout, unfortunately, is going to need to remain near the bottom of the list for now.
Of course, that doesn't mean I can't add content. Content is King after all these days, and I actually miss writing. So these are, shall we say, the bones of what the new Mutable Dreamer is going to look like. I personally like it *smiles* ... I hope you do too.
Around 4-something in the afternoon last Tuesday someone apparently did something stupid with a cigarette and destroyed something like 20 suites here at the Place Promenade. The alarms were going off for 2+ hours straight, and unfortunately since I'm kind of disabled (though I prefer the term "gimped") in the ankle department Honeywine and I waited it out upstairs in the apartment -- just hoping the fire wouldn't reach us. There's no way I can do 30+ flights of stairs while carrying her, so we really had no choice. $5-8 million dollars worth of damage later; the entire transverse between 410 and 400 has been destroyed, the Promenade itself was under water for 24+ hours, and I still can't get the stink of apartment complex burning out of my clothes.