Well, not exactly.

One of the A-Team film producers just called me asking if I had F/A-18-style joysticks because he needed some for a scene in the film. Unfortunately for him, I don't stock video game accessories.

Explorers is a film that was released in mid-80's. I saw it on VHS in 1999 at age 13 (about the same age as the protagonists) and it made a lasting impression on me.

The first 62 minutes of the film evoke more fun, inspiration, imagination, and a sense of impending adventure than any other film I can think of. Ben, a character with a vivid imagination, starts having dreams involving him flying over an elaborate electronic circuit. Somehow he manages to transcribe the schematic sufficiently well that his geeky friend Wolfgang can build it. It turns out to be a forcefield generator that can create an airtight bubble, immune to inertia, that can move at any speed. Ben's convinced that some alien intelligence has caused him to have these dreams so he'll have the means to visit them. Together with Darren, an unlikely friend from a broken home, they build their own spaceship out of an old carnival ride, using the forcefield generator as the propulsion system. They christen the ship the Thunder Road.

But the next 31 minutes are horribly disappointing (from the moment the boys set foot aboard the alien spacecraft to the moment they leave). The aliens even admit that they were afraid Ben would be disappointed if/when he found out their true nature (the aliens are kids themselves...and silly ones at that).

But the last 8 minutes are really good. You can really see the boys' emotions when the Thunder Road is lost... and then there's a complete emotional turn-around when the boys share one final dream, joined by the girl Ben likes (the girl having previously dreampt about the boys' entire space adventure).

I showed the film to a friend who visited me this week. I should've skipped the middle part. He agreed that seeing the entire film kindof ruined the experience.

I searched the webernet tubes, but couldn't find even one fanfic related to this film. I assumed at least one person would've attempted to re-write the middle to not be so disappointing.

A guy visited the store today, looked at everything, asked me if a scale model of a V8 engine was available, then left.

A short while later, he returns with a woman, and gestures toward a $456 R/C helicopter I have on my counter, then he goes off looking at my diecast cars.

The woman places two cheap items on the counter and I start writing her bill, then she nonchalantly says, "we'll take that helicopter, too."

I'm surprised by this, of course, but I write up the bill, which comes to just under $500 with taxes.

Then it comes time to pay. I tried six or seven payment cards between the two of them (a combination of gift, debit, and credit cards). None of them worked.

Some cards were bent.

Some cards had a worn-out magnetic stripe, and when I keyed in the number manually, the terminal gave an "invalid card number" error message.

For some cards, the terminal thought they ought to have microchips, but they were just plain cards without chips, so of course those failed when I was prompted to insert the chipped ends into the terminal.

In the end, the woman acted surprised, claiming she had "just paid off all the cards". Seeing as one of the cards she tried to use was a CIBC debit card, I suggested that she try the CIBC ATM down the street. They left, ostensibly to visit the ATM, but they never returned.

I created an eBay store to sell some items, but if I attempt to offer an item at a fixed price (instead of an auction), I get this message: "Error: - The seller is not qualified to list a store fixed price item, or store Fixed-Price feature is not available on international sites." WTF?

Ok, so maybe I'll try using Google Checkout instead. No, they have some silly restriction that your business must be based either in the United States or the United Kingdom. WTF?

Ok, so maybe I'll use amazon.ca instead. No, you can't list products on amazon.ca unless they're books, music, movies, electronics, software, or video games. WTF?

I bought some cinnamon rolls from the bakery across the street from my store today, and bit into one only to discover they were contaminated.

With raisins.

Yuck. Absolute worst idea since raisin bread and raisin muffins and...anything else with raisins in it.

Here's an interesting article about how statisticians correctly estimated the number of tanks the Germans were producing each month during WWII, using the serial numbers of captured tanks.

I believe the clever formula they devised could be used to estimate the size of the virtual die used to generate a sequence of random numbers. Which would be useful when programmatically analyzing mud logs.

Yes, I need something to kill time when there aren't any customers in my store.

Almost every retailer (and car dealership and gas station) in the world uses what's called psychological pricing to increase profits. Typically this involves rounding prices up to a value slightly less than a nice, round number. Mathematically-inept shoppers then mentally round the prices down instead of to the nearest whole number.

Being mathematically-inclined, however, I have always rounded prices properly in my head, and I have always felt insulted when encountering prices such as $19.99.

I don't care if it would increase profits slightly. Psychological pricing is exploitation of ignorance, and I won't stoop to that level.

Additionally, it's pointless to have prices with more than three significant digits. Whenever I receive new stock in the future, I will round prices over $10 to the nearest 10 cents, prices over $100 to the nearest dollar, and prices over $1000 to the nearest 10 dollars (although I don't plan on having anything over $850 for a long time; that's the price of one of the wooden boat kits I have in stock).

Here are some photos of the shop:

View from street:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/1.jpg

Closeup of front door:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/2.jpg

View inside front door:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/3.jpg

Wall of track, angle #1:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/4.jpg

Wall of track, angle #2:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/5.jpg

HO scale aisle:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/6.jpg

Paint aisle and check-out counter:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/7.jpg

Couplers, trucks, and books:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/8.jpg

Book rack:
http://www.sailsnrails.com/images/store/9.jpg

My camera's batteries died at this point. I can take more photos if there's anything specific that anyone would like to see.

I have two 1/24 scale Tamiya BMW Z3 Roadster kits in stock with identical item numbers (24166) but one has a *2500 after the item number and the other has a *1800 after the item number and they have different barcodes.

I also have two AirFix 1/600 scale HMS Fearless ship kits, with identical item numbers (03205) but they have different box art and barcodes.

Don't model manufactures have anything better to do than randomly implementing new barcoding schemes?

The past couple weeks have been a blur, with me spending 16+ hours per day in the store trying to get the inventory finished and things moved around. I opened up for business on Monday despite the inventory not being quite complete. I still have to record all the HO scale steam locomotives, N scale locomotives, some bulk balsa wood, modeling brushes, and a few miscellaneous items...then I have to go back and assign prices to some things that didn't have prices before.

Unfortunately, my account with the credit card processing company hasn't been set up yet, so I have to wait until next week Tuesday before I can use the swiper machine (despite them PROMISING it would be ready for today. Argh!) This means I can't accept debit cards until then, and I have to use a cheapo credit-card-imprint device in the interim.

I was pleasantly surprised that both yesterday and today were good sales days, however.

This evening I purchased a length of 2" PVC tubing to form the post for a crossbuck (train crossing sign) for the storefront. I'm going to wire two bundles of red LEDs to make the flashing lights. I'll probably use a trivial 555 timer circuit with a flip-flop to get them to flash alternately.

I also have to build some 2'x4' model railroad modules for the storefront diorama, which can plug into the club layout when the club meets twice a month.

My sleep schedule is approaching normalcy now, and I've quit taking my medication. I've found that my incidence of headaches has decreased substantially since this adventure began. I used to get them once a day, but I only recall one during this transition period.

The previous owner of the hobby store had little sense of efficiency and organization.

Half of the small storage room was wasted by a bench that only held a loop of HO scale track and a loop of N scale track.

Shelving standards were installed in the storage room, but few shelves were hung on them, and they were dedicated to either holding empty boxes or locomotives in various states of repair (most without any notes as to who owned them or what was wrong with them).

About 56 feet of shelving along one wall was dedicated to test tracks (for testing locomotives), when 6 or 8 feet would have sufficed.

The throttle for the test track was located in a far corner of the store, meaning he (or his twice-a-week helper) wouldn't be able to keep an eye on the front of the store when demoing an engine to a customer.

HO-scale and N-scale products were hung wherever they would fit on one long wall, with little consideration to keeping related products together.

Some track products were hung on the wall, while others were hung on free-standing wire racks, while others were hung on pegboard on the free-standing shelving units.

One wall near the back was completely empty except for two rows of books.

Many products were haphazardly tossed into a "miscellaneous" box instead of being hung in a manner that would allow customers to find them.

Prime shelving space in the front of the store was used to display very old inventory that wouldn't sell.

Many (if not most) of the hooks on the wall didn't have any backing card to indicate what product was supposed to be hung on them. Or they had the wrong product ID on them.

A large garbage barrel wasted a chunk of the office.

The desk in the office was oriented in such a way that made it difficult for bystanders to view the computer without knocking into a mess of unused clothes hangers.

The railroad display in the front of the store was way too large, and the L-shaped aisle it formed was too narrow to squeeze into comfortably.

Anyway, I've been fixing problems like these for the past week. I'm in the middle of taking inventory (but tackling and organizing the hardest parts of the store first).

The owner's been trying to sell his store for months (due to health reasons), but I didn't consider myself to be a potential buyer until a few days ago. The store sells model railroad equipment, model boats, model rockets, R/C helicopters, and miscellaneous things. If I go through with this, I'll be working six days a week, for 8+ hours each day. This will be a drastic change in my lifestyle, one that will enforce a rigid schedule. It's daunting, but I'm also hopeful.

Today I got to see Star Trek at 10 am, for free. :)

( Spoiler Warning )

The street I live on is in pretty pathetic shape, with potholes and patches all over the place. This morning I spotted this sign at the end of the street:



I'm ecstatic.

800 trains, 10,000 railroad cars, 10 kilometers of track. Automated vehicles. 40+ computers. Oh, and they plan to double its size by 2014.