OzModius - September 2008 - The Mantle Piece

September is one of the months that either has two important events, the winding down of the summer wedding season or the kids going back to school. Some couples like the September wedding because kids can't attend if the wedding has mostly 99.9% adults and one or two children. And so you now have one of the reasons for the September wedding, but also the best reason has to be price, especially if your have four seasons like the East Coast. The West Coast can pretty much have weddings year round with some months not good for beach weddings; Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Arizona really seams to have two or three climates hot, hotter, and tornado depending on the geographical area and if your facing the gulf. But no matter where you live there still is the struggle that you have finding the perfect wedding gift.

You get the invitation to the wedding and carefully open the invitation and get the usual, which is the invitation and the stores the couple has registered for the gifts. I don't know about you, but both buying and registering for gifts are just as arduous, each event costs me 20 hours of hunting, which does not seem bad if your single, but if your married you have to practice time management. In which case; when you receive the wedding invitation; your hoping its for next month and not two months away, with two months everyone just procrastinates and then as a coordinated mafia hit, waits for that special weekend, and proceeds to purchase the same gift. Its like trying to book a business trip in the middle of "Spring Break".

Fortunately I have had the experience of the September wedding and this is how it went. Received the invitation to the wedding, but no bridal registry, so I asked my friend what he wanted, he just said "...just get me whatever, you always come up with something good, and do you have a date?", I told him "Yes, I'll have to see if my mistress (form of address) is available for the wedding." I asked Mila if she was available for the wedding, saying, "what should I wear..." soon after both questions were answered I was out buying and evening dress and a wedding gift. One of my friends offered a nice cocktail dress, which fit Mila perfectly. I never told her it was my friends prom dress, but the less she new the better. I spent close to forty hours with the dress and finding the present.

I hunted and hunted and always came up short, but then I remember my friend mentioned having a fire place and his soon to be wife joking about how a NFL boble head figurine is not a mantle piece, the first item as far as a mantle piece was an elephant and cub, but then that didn't bode to well since non of them elephants brought then any luck, so I went searching more and found something that look like sea world encarnate, but then that did not do, I even saw a tiny Budha but somethign wasn't right, so I started over again at another store and then I found it. A crystal ornament with a hole set for a a time piece, yet no time piece when I checked the package, ran back to the store, returned the clock and asked the clerk if they had something simular with a clock. "Yes, we have something simulare, but its a little smaller than what your looking for...", I asked her to show me, and told her it what I was looking for.

The next day the wedding and me rushing from CT to NY to pick up Mila, and the three hour tour like Gilligans Island, thankfully I had Mila to talk my head off driving to the wedding. All went well getting to the wedding on time, but the weather turned and so the whole thing was moved indoors, imagine snow flurrys during indian summer, but the party had good music, booze, and dancing. Towards the end of the night I had to drive Mila home, I said my good-byes to everyone, the bride asked me to one side and said, "I opened your present, how did you know...", I put my finger to my lips and said, "there are stranger things that happen in this universe everyday, just be happy I can't give a gift without putting my heart and soul into it...". With that she gave me a bear hug and a kiss and we said our farwells, On the way out my friend shook my hand and said the same thing as his wife, I just looked at him and said, "asked your wife what she just told me and I'll speak to you tomorrow.

Busy weeks in preparation for holidays...

I love the holidays because the shopping deals are like no other time of the year. In a conversation with one of my marketing guys he was stating that people were scared last year to buy anything in fear of the new president, but he is expecting this christmas season to prosper with last minute shopping. I thought about this hard, overwhelmed with the idea that a web store needs to keep its web page static for at least six months to become popular and let the word out. I am hoping to offer my customers these unique products before everyone starts to go into a short production haul. What is a short production haul? A term used in retail related to the "black friday" estimates, but most retailers have a friends and family shopping nights a week or two before Thanksgiving as an experiment.  The products you see during the month of October in the stores is the merchandise you will see for Christmas; and for the month of December; after the completion of "black Friday" figures; you will see door stoppers.  Door stoppers are another term for a product that makes you stop and say "wow!!!" and you end up buying it, when you don't really need it, but what the heck it only costs $20.00 dollars.  Its the famous Billy Mays pitch, i.e. buy this mascara and get the free cosmetic bag, and if your lucky you'll get the bag in the store, or end up with a coupon which you'll most likely redeem or not.

In  a commitment to circumstances I have done plenty of work on DorothysAttic.com to bring the Holidays early, offer great deals from the beggining and pour over lots of html, marketing persons and doing analytical data of my competitors that sell similar items, and finding no one is doing anything like this at the moment, but things can change and prices could go up or down according to the outlook of pre-beta black fridays.  The fortunate thing is that my inventory dynamically updates every month and I am able to follow the updates so that you don't end up scrambling for a gift at the last moment.  Now if you get stuck, just bye yourself a "door stopper" for yourself, do the lego block fascination thing with your friends, gloat and wallow in your victory and make a general list of a toy you would like your family and friends to have, because at deep down inside your still a Child inside and gift giving shouldn't be reserved for the holidays.

Dorothy's Attic is now open September 11, 2009

I hoped to have Dorothy's Attic opened earlier in the month in time for Labor Day, but it just wasn't in the stars. But it is finally here and open for business, and so I can write the story of why the name "Dorothy's Attic"...  In celebration of this occasion prices through out the store have been reduced by 10%...

Dorothy's Attic

It began in my childhood when Dorothy a neighbor would ask me to do her favors, and she would pay me a dollar for helping her out. Some of the times she would offer me a drink of juice or something, depending of the task at hand. And so this continued for years until I went away to college.

She was a good neighbor, a nice woman who lived alone, but was loved by everyone in the community, and it was a sad day when she passed away some fifteen years ago.  A family member inherited her brown stone house which had seen better days, and the last thing on his mind was having another home.  The plan to fix the old house and then sell it off, but with almost non-existant funds.

The family member recruited some friends to keep the labor costs down, there was some room on his credit cards so he can buy some supplies, but then the funds fell short.  One day he stumbled into the attic and found a bunch of stuff; stuff he could easily sell in a yard sale, but then his dream dissolved as he saw the hole in the roof.  He went ahead with the yard sale, and sold me his "Herby the Love Bug" book for fifteen cents, a book Dorothy held onto saying it was her nephews favorite book.  Moments after he had sold me his prize possession a neighbor had bought something as well and they broke into a conversation.  I heard about the roof problem and told both the neighbor and Dorothy's nephew about the promotion on roofs where they were offering 0% financing for 1 year.

All I can say is that everything worked out, the yard sale gave Dorothy's nephew a few extra bucks; good for extra pizza and beer money.  A little information so he could accomplish his dreams and his friends ended up buying the house.  I know this does not seem to have merit, but then this might spur your curiosity, one of the items in the yard sale matches one of the products that I have in this online store, and when I saw it I instantly had a site name, and I did not spell Dorothy's name wrong, because this is the way her parents put it on her birth certificate, some times things are just meant to be.

POGO or California Fire what really is top news... My vote is for the Tiolet...

The war is old yet we have POGO on the front page of CNN.  CNN shows on television the California fires but makes me wonder if the government has initiated a subtle form of censorship.

Kennedy and Health Care...

Since Kennedy passed away there has been speculation of health care. I told my neice when she was here in America that he was doomed to die within three years of the prognosis of the brain tumor and that the news following would border on the health care issue. I hate being right, but then again it is the way our government works. Only one person has a good idea and no one backs them up... Funeral details of this event
It is the problem where we made a bigger deal of the death of Micheal Jackson than the death of Kennedy...

What is a POG?...

I have been a little busy, working to get things set on my end and finally got a preview of the site, but then nothing is definite until the final inspection that I have to do with the site.  Being in a good mood seeing things starting to progress; went searching around the net for something interesting and found the Pog and of course I'm left speechless.  You have to check the link to see what I mean.  You'll even end up a new term like c.p.g "Creative Pet Grooming" or reading the rest the page or viewing the galleries, yes pets do have bad hair day with or without their owners consent...

Cat Earns a GED...

Now I was interested in sending Ricky a few years ago to Columbia for his math degree, Columbia University will deny this and rightly so, because the school existed in Columbia, South America. I thought this was a wacky enough idea, but then again I decided against it when I saw an Animal Planet Television special where the dog trainer had the dog do math. This sounds astounding, but nothing like the story today "Cat Earns a GED..." take a look and see if your just as amazed as I am...