raising heller

okay people, here are the tentative designs for the new heller trading, inc. business cards. i submit these to you to get some constructive crticism. do you have any changes you would like to see?
i’m (obviously) not going for a really professional look. i’m not thomasville, and i’m not going to try and fool anyone. (see here) anyway, what do you think?

front

i just wanted something for the front that people would remember. maybe even something that they would laugh at and want to show their friends.

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there is a new tune in the heller family tunes section called “i’m hopeful”. i just wrote and recorded it a couple of days ago. it’s really simple (hence the short production time) but i think it’s nice. you be the judge.

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jana had her ultrasound yesterday. the place was really cool. the place that did our ultrasound for lily in california sucked. but this place was very nice. the lady who worked the machine was very courteous and professional. she made me want to fill out a comment card, but we were short on time. plus, i didn’t see any comment cards.

well, through her astute observation, she conluded that we were having a…

baby! no, just kidding. well, i mean i’m not kidding, we are having a baby. but as it turns out we will be having a baby boy on or around november 6th, 2005. is that crazy, or what?! she said that this picture was of his junk. i’m going to have to take her word on that one.

the challenge to decide on a name has now begun. jana was so convinced that it was going to be a girl that we haven’t even discussed any boy names. what do you think we should call him? we’re casting out the net. reply to this with any cool names that you think would be a candidate for baby boy heller. we’re counting on you.

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so, me and a buddy of mine just got scuba certified. it was really fun. i highly recommend it. we on;y went down to about 50 feet, but it was pretty crazy. it’s a whole ‘nother world down there. in the course of two days of diving, my friend brady got attacked by a crab, we both almost blacked out making an ascent too quickly and i got stung in the face by a jelly fish. diving is the coolest!

here’s a few pictures of us.

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embrace – live at the crocodile cafe 16 june, 2005

last night, jana and i had the pleasure of seeing one of our favorite bands, embrace at the crocodile cafe in seattle. for the uninitiated, embrace are one of the best bands to come out of the jolly old u.k. since the beatles. how coldplay has made it so much bigger in the states than embrace escapes me. embrace are the reigning champions of the epic, stadium swaying mega anthem. lyrically, it seems as if every line from every song could be its own song title. “there’s nothing you’ve got i want”, “we tried for so long to reach eleven on a scale of one to ten”, and “learning how to live with how it feels” are all lines taken from the same song that could have just as easily been the title. they went with “dry kids”. killer song.

seeing them in a quaint little cafe with maybe 150 or 200 other people was definitely cool. it reminded me of when we got to see coldplay at the mayan in los angeles as they were about to make their break into the states. but still, even as i was hearing the songs that i’ve come to love, i couldn’t help but think that these songs were made to be heard in a stadium. their music is totally stadium rock, that hurdle notwithstanding, they put on an incredible live show. they mostly played songs from their new album, out of nothing (available in stores now!), which is incredible.

for those of you wishing to give the band a try, i would start with their first album, the good will out. start to finish, it’s amazing. their second album, drawn from memory, faltered a bit in my opinion. they seemed to forget what they were good at. but maybe i just need to listen to it more. by the third album, if you’ve never been, they were back in fine form and put out an album that we’d all been hoping for.

check out their website, embrace.co.uk to see if they’re playing any shows in your area. i can promise you that you won’t regret taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to see this band. first of all, i predict that if you don’t see them now, by the time that you are in love with them, everyone will be and they’ll be playing the u.s. stadium circuit as they already are in england. don’t miss this chance. the second time that jana and i got to see coldplay was at the hollywood bowl. i can promise that seeing them at the mayan was a much better experience. so, see embrace now while you still can without having to make your way down an aisle to seat 79 in row KK. but i can tell you that when they do come to town 2 years from now and the only ticket that i can buy is seat 79 in row KK, i will gladly make that purchase.

below are some pictures and the song that they closed the show with. well, the album version anyway.

[audio:Embrace-TheGoodWillOut.mp3]

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in an effort to better my health, save some money, and lose a couple of lbs, i have undertaken a rather interesting challenge.
you see, working for myself poses an interesting dilemma. in order to make this business the best that it can be, i put in a lot of hours. often i don’t come home until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. while this is great for the business, it hasn’t been so great on me. coming home late causes me to seek food sources other than my home. a random sampling of said sources are illustrated below.

i’m fed up with the pain that fast food is causing me. it’s a burden on my body as well as my wallet. i’ve put on a little (some would disagree with my definition of little) unnecessary weight and feel that my life would be much better off without the monkey of fast food on my back. so here is the challenge: entirely give up fast food for one year, starting today. no longer will i be a partaker of the world of quickly prepared death. and what would a challenge be without a reward? if i successfully complete this task, i can buy a new guitar amp costing $1000 or less (it won’t be less).

i will be updating all visitors to the heller family.org of my progress on a monthly basis. i am excited about this new quest and know that i can make this happen.

the details:
a) there will be no consumption of fast food for any reason. in the event that i am really hungry and am out late due to work, i will be allowed to go to a grocery store and get a sandwich or a salad, provided that i call jana first and confirm the contents of the purchase that will be made.

b) if we are out and about and the in-laws want to buy us some lunch at a fast food restaurant, i can order a salad and a beverage.

the starting measurements:
hips (i say it’s my waist but jana swears that my waist is about 6 inches higher): 40 inches

gut: 43 inches. (it’s embarrassing).

weight: 203 lbs.

the game is afoot.

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Does someone we know have a double life, thinly disguised with a slightly different spelling of his first name? See for yourself…a lot of things add up.
http://www.motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/2005/74/scooter74.htm

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on sunday (barely) and i’m listening to bright eyes’ fevers and mirrors just working on the web site and there are 3 other people browsing this site. just out of curiosity, why?

what are you doing on our site this late (or early) at night? i’d be interested to know who you are. please reply to this with a little story about what’s going on for you right at this very moment if you’re one of the people that i speak of.

that’s cool that you’re here, i just can’t imagine not having anything else going on at this time of the morning. thanks for thinking of the hellers when you’ve got nothing to do and you just can’t sleep. i hope that we can be a solution to your problem.

p.s. – as a side note i was going through our site logs and i discovered that we’ve had visitors from canada, the netherlands and australia. i’d like to wish a warm hello to our fine foreign friends. aloha.

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(we’re not girls, i mean this in jest).

okay, so this is how it goes…

heller gets hitched, i get hitched a year later.
lily is born, then ian (our son) is born 3.5 months later.
a pattern is developing here…

however, in an effort to beat the hellers to the punch, alison gets pregnant with our second kid (due october 3, 2005).

jana discovers she is pregnant at the same time we do… leaving us still one step behind.

what can we do to compete?

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in an effort to try and spice up the business. i think that we need a new name. heller trading, inc. just doesn’t convey what i’d like it to. i want a name that implies a sense of style, value, great prices, and i want people to feel that by shopping at (new name here) they’re part of an elite club that’s “in the know”.
i don’t want the name to feel expensive. when i hear the name “thomasville” i think “expensive”. i don’t want that. i want people to think clean and stylish. we’re going to try and re-decorate and make the place look… not so lame.

i would like to put this out there to all of you. i know that a lot of you have some good ideas. reply to this with any new business names that you can think of that convey the things i’ve mentioned above. and give us any design ideas that you can think of that would spruce up the warehouse.

the challenge has begun!

to see how the warehouse currently looks, click… Read more…

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