the good the bad and the ugly

it's been an eventful few days.

on the good side... the job continues to be incredible. challenging, rewarding... amazing. Stephen and Kyle came down for a couple of days and seem to have found a place to live just two blocks away. the coffee continues to be amazing. i've been running some employee cuppings - which have been great. we've been focusing on a program of palate development and education and everyone is digging it. very cool. Stumptown continues to grow and expand. i was told that we are "the coffee mafia" of Portland the other day. business is booming. there was a great blurb about our COE coffees in the Willamette Weekly the other day. and we had a visit from Andrew Ford (Australian Mountain Top Estate) the other day which was very interesting. Finally... Phuong came down to visit which was super cool. she is taking on the role of wholesale training for Zoka -- which is awesome; for both her and for Zoka.

on the bad side... i injured my back (again) on Sunday. it's been really rough. i haven't been able to sleep well and there has been a fair amount of pain involved. getting older sucks.

and on the ugly side... we had a nice flood experience in one of the cafes. frantic and insane! the great thing was that, through great work by the cafe managers and our contractor Garth, not only was it resolved quickly and with minimal (given the circumstances) damage -- I don't think that any of our customers even knew what was going on!