One Great Day

Today was spent helping my wife set up her garage/estate sale. Aside from battling unseasonably cold weather and gusts to 32 (as measured on ye olde anemometer), this was a fantastic day. I'm helping the wife. We're clearing out the house of a lot of old stuff [and committing to the fact that once it leaves the house, it isn't coming back].

Part of that was a visit by Dickson Street Books to see if my deceased mother-in-law's old books had any value. They're quite patient with the junk, helping me separate the wheat. While waiting, I turn to see not one, but two Menken first editions (Prejudices, Second; Prejudices, Third). Um, yes, I'll take that as store credit; and with that Second comes home to bring my collection to almost complete. If anyone out there has the First they'd like to part with . . .

Standing there with Menken in hand -- it just feels good to handle the old books of a master. At the end of the day, it is about classics. Starbucks found that out the hard way. For all the marketing, the research, the product placements, the collateral items -- Starbucks lost its way because it forgot what made it Starbucks. Good coffee, and a coffee-shop atmosphere.

Read the other day they're going with this Pike Place "revival" to have more coffee beans handled and ground in the store. The result? The Starbucks smells like it should. An inadvertent huge error by the corporation -- when you go to vacuum sealed products, and pre-ground items you might save a little coin, but in the process you lose the soul of the coffee house.

There's a lesson in my cup of coffee today. Sometimes, the way to your future is through remembering what got you to where you are today. Lot of folks forget that. If passion got you there, keep it. If your fan base got you there, remember them. We'll see.