Real life

Google Docs ate my homework

by Cinda Baxter on August 22, 2009

in Real life, Technology, The 3/50 Project

google_docsLemme tell ya, if you want to stop my heart on a dime, utter the following words:

Google Docs tanked The 3/50 Project registrations, Cinda.

Really want to go for the gut? Tell me just as I’m getting on a plane to fly half way across the country. As in Thursday. As in the day I was headed to Seattle. [click here to continue…]

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cakewrecksAdmit it. We could all use a healthy dose of laughter once in a while. Thanks to the ever-wonderful Jan Brockway (Pomegranate Home & Garden in Bend, OR) for sharing this little gem:

Cakewrecks.

Honest to goodness, some of the stories will boggle your mind. I mean, c’mon. The blog’s tagline is When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” You just know there’s good material in there.

Love this one in particular. Yet another reason we never, ever, ever took verbal orders over the phone in my storefront days.

Photo courtesy of CakeWrecks.com
Note: Some of the humor may be a bit ”out there.” You’ve been warned.

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Tagged should be toast

by Cinda Baxter on June 8, 2009

in Real life

taggedHeads up: There’s a new virus making the rounds, and it appears to have hit a number of retailers.

The email appears to come from an actual person (more than likely, someone you know), but the thing’s really a bug that’s found its way into your friend’s address book and is carpet bombing all their friends with the message you see above.

Three of these messages arrived in my private inbox-—an address I don’t give out willy nilly. The first two came from people I didn’t know; the third came from a client…or so it seemed.

According to her, she didn’t even complete the signup process on the Tagged website, yet recipients in her address book were suddenly receiving this uninvited spam.

Whatever you do, DON’T register as invited. Delete the thing if you get it.

You and the folks in your address book will thank me for it later.

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Sorry about the site going dark for a while this afternoon. The host company had “a server emergency” that took alwaysupward.com, the blog, and all our email accounts offline while the DNS propagated to the backup server (geek speak equivalent of  “the water heater broke and it took a little while for the new one to warm up”).

Looks like things are functional again…or at least the server is. My heart, on the other hand, might be in question, since the thing keeled over less than two hours after a press release went out about our swanky new numbers (see previous post). Thankfully, The 3/50 Project website propagated quickly, so no blackout there.

Now…back to jump starting my pulse….

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A love letter to brick and mortars

by Cinda Baxter on February 14, 2009

in Real life, Retail

candy_heart_b2How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth
and height of that pile on your desk,
which seems to be ever growing.
For the ends of long weeks
and the ideal of big numbers.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
most harried moments,
by neon and track light glow.

I love thee freely, as customers ask for bargains;
I love thee purely, as they head home carrying bags.

I love thee with the passion of a past storefront retailer,
complete with empathy, sympathy, and faith.

I love thee with the love I seemed to lose
when the best employees moved on.
I love thee with the breath, smiles, and tears
that enriched my retail life.

And if God choose, I shall but love thee even better…after market.

Happy Valentines, brick and mortars. You aren’t alone out there!

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Cleaning out the…um…stuff

by Cinda Baxter on February 10, 2009

in Real life

toilet_bowlNote to self: Remember to have neighbors run hot water through house pipes while out of town

A sewer line frozen from the house to the street creates a scenario that is not only extraordinarily depressing, but wildly expensive. Goodbye carpet, trim, walls, boxed financial records…..

One day and four sizable checks to plumbers and hazmat guys later, I’m working from the kitchen table. You can’t hear the office phone ring over the industrial fans roaring like jet engines, let alone string together a functional thought.

At least it’s better than yesterday, when I watched two rooms floating in sludge.*

*I refuse to call it by its real name

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Wowser…what the hey?!?

by Cinda Baxter on February 2, 2009

in Real life

cheering_crowd_vintageYup. Finally did it. Finally got the new blog design up and running, replacing the rather sterile pre-packaged one that’s been acting as a placeholder.

Rest assured, your favorite elements from the original are still here, along with a few new ones. Join me for a quick tour of the place….

[click here to continue…]

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This past year’s been interesting.

For me, 2008 was pretty terrific, albeit filled with too many third party political agendas (and I don’t mean election-related). For my friends who own retail stores, however, it was an uphill battle filled with enormous challenge–in most cases becoming critical as early as June.

Regardless of whether your year fell into the “terrific” or “challenging” category, it’s safe to say 2008 was complicated. Reeeeally complicated. The past twelve months generally gave a lot of pretty smart folks some pretty serious headaches. [click here to continue…]

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