I know, I said "Happy holidays!" and it irks some people. We have a large customer base with many beliefs. I don't want to miss anyone.
My son and I have been having a number of discussions on faith, religion, individuality and spirituality. We differ on our views a little and that's okay. This world is built by faith, it is destroyed by faith - except it's not the faith, is it? It's people taking their own views and deciding to make a change.
Nicest way I can put it.
However, this post isn't directly about what is going on in the world.
It's about this year in our small shop.
We are super grateful to all of our customers. You have been so very good to us. We are happy to be able to help everyone we can.
And a few of you have returned the favour by helping us out when we needed it.
We started out with a bang this year! We had so many calls by the middle of January, we had to open. And it continued being super busy, all year long.
Jude and Zach both returned to work with us and they both did a great job. We are super happy with them. We look forward to working with Jude next year, if he decides to come back. As for Zach, while we love having him around, we would rather see him happily working in the world of music as he aspires to do.
Mike has learned a lot this year about new bike tech and some science stuff. Like melting a stuck seat post out of a frame with lye. That was a very interesting experiment. And a lovely lady got her bike back.
We made some new friends, including a guitarist and drummer that Mike is now playing keyboards with. {I think "Chasing Comets" is a great alternative, mostly 80s-style, experimental band name ;)}
I have faced some challenges in the last couple of years that have taken strikes at my competency in this job. I also have some newfound confidence and real progress on my rehab group. I am becoming a coach. I hope a great coach. We'll talk more about that group in the coming months.
We worked hard to set up a fundraiser for MS that went nowhere. Not a single person showed up, outside of my very wonderful volunteers. We had a great time doing it, even if it was a flop. We learned a lot; like the mantra "location, location, location" is an actual thing. So, when we do it again this year, we will have a new location, one that isn't hard to find and so dark it's intimidating.
While not having traffic noise in the background added to the atmosphere of the haunted ride we built, it's a good trade to have people come and have fun.
I think, too, that we have to make it clearer that you do not have to raise money to participate, you just have to bring your loonies and toonies to donate to MS Research and have a good scare on an evening before Halloween.
Our time off is rapidly approaching. We are open last on the 21st - wow! That's THIS SATURDAY! Oh, my cookies. I have work to do at home!
As always, we are going to have our phone with us. I cannot promise to check the email every day but I will be doing some work anyway as I set up some operational improvements.
"Yes, should need us, really need us, for any reason at all..."*
We know we have some winter riders and we are here for you.
Oh, one other thing, someone showed me this and I thought I would share it with you:
Neat, eh? And possibly a little weird. But humans are a little weird anyway.
Have a wonderful holiday season, however you celebrate it. We shall see you in the new year.
*Labyrinth
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