We're in midwinter, still having bitter cold, but the sun shone yesterday and today, and the forecast is *warm* - up into the 40s. Perhaps that's why things felt more hopeful today, after a bit of retail gloom. The store was hopping with people, especially those with kids in tow, this afternoon. And someone came to pick my brain - a man working on opening a restaurant downtown. Hooray for that - we babbled excitedly about the prospects and his background for about 20 minutes, then someone else, a Pioneer employee, piped up - he, and many fellow employees, wanted to start his own business, too. I introduced the two of them , then one of my favorite businessmen came in, and I warned him I'd suggested him as a good source of advice, too. Now what the first two gys and I want is a way to gather people to talk about these things - I offered to host at the bookstore, if they got people together. The restauranter is taking the microenterprise business class I took, beginning this Monday.

In the midst of winter and a depression, it's good to see the ferment of ideas bubbling. Hope helps.