Small Business Saturday for the Win.
Nov. 29th, 2015 10:52 amOver the last few years a tradition has grown that after the horrors of Black Friday comes Small Business Saturday; a day when you are supposed to patronize locally-owned small businesses and give them some of your holiday money. I love shopping locally, and heartily endorse this idea.
As most of you know,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kshandra was in a car accident a few weeks ago. Nobody hurt, but the damage to Barnum, her PT Cruiser was so extensive that the insurance company wrote it off as a total loss. We got a substantial check (more than either of us had expected) and Kiri began searching for a new car. She found a great one at D&B Auto Brokers in Redwood City. This is a one man operation, and not at all polished. But there are some great deals to be found there. After a test drive, we paid cash for a 2005 PT Cruiser with only a few thousand more miles on it than the old car. We're picking it up Tuesday. To follow in tradition, the replacement for Barnum is named Bailey.
By the way, if you are shopping for a used car, do yourself a favor and spend the $55 for CarFax's unlimited account. Unlimited reports based on the license plate number, six VIN lookups, and good for 60 days.
After that, we headed to one of our favorite place, BookBuyers in Mountain View. We still had a bit of credit from our last sale here, and we wanted to support a business that has been struggling. Well, we supported all right. Walked out with a pile of books including one by my favorite historian. John Julius Norwich's The Middle Sea, a overview of Mediterranean history from reed boats to steam ships.
Food was required. Chili's is not a small business, but they make damn good food.
Finally, we supported our Friendly Local Game Store, Game Kastle. After much hemming and hawing, and on the recommendation of friends, I bought Feng Shui 2. Really enjoying it, and I realized that this would make an excellent system for gaming Tim Power's Last Call/Expiration Date/Earthquake Weather triptych. Hell, throw in Declare for good measure.
So, what did y'all do to support local businesses?
As most of you know,
kshandra was in a car accident a few weeks ago. Nobody hurt, but the damage to Barnum, her PT Cruiser was so extensive that the insurance company wrote it off as a total loss. We got a substantial check (more than either of us had expected) and Kiri began searching for a new car. She found a great one at D&B Auto Brokers in Redwood City. This is a one man operation, and not at all polished. But there are some great deals to be found there. After a test drive, we paid cash for a 2005 PT Cruiser with only a few thousand more miles on it than the old car. We're picking it up Tuesday. To follow in tradition, the replacement for Barnum is named Bailey.By the way, if you are shopping for a used car, do yourself a favor and spend the $55 for CarFax's unlimited account. Unlimited reports based on the license plate number, six VIN lookups, and good for 60 days.
After that, we headed to one of our favorite place, BookBuyers in Mountain View. We still had a bit of credit from our last sale here, and we wanted to support a business that has been struggling. Well, we supported all right. Walked out with a pile of books including one by my favorite historian. John Julius Norwich's The Middle Sea, a overview of Mediterranean history from reed boats to steam ships.
Food was required. Chili's is not a small business, but they make damn good food.
Finally, we supported our Friendly Local Game Store, Game Kastle. After much hemming and hawing, and on the recommendation of friends, I bought Feng Shui 2. Really enjoying it, and I realized that this would make an excellent system for gaming Tim Power's Last Call/Expiration Date/Earthquake Weather triptych. Hell, throw in Declare for good measure.
So, what did y'all do to support local businesses?
