A Letter To My Daughter For When She's Old Enough To Date

I am writing this in protest because you will never be allowed to date.  But I know you will, so I better at least acknowledge it.

When I was younger and thought about the eventuality of having kids, I always wanted a son.  I know that's a really bad outlook.  It's just that I didn't understand girls.  I still don't.  I just figured it would be easier, ya know.

And even while you were still unborn and camera shy at the sonograms, I thought, "Maybe it will be a boy.  You never know."  I'd drive around in the car and have these philosophical discussions, with an empty backseat where you'd one day be, dispensing all my worldly knowledge about whatever it is I'm supposed to know at my age.  Guess what?  It isn't much.  When I say "I don't know" to you, I really don't know the answers.

But, when you were actually born and I held you, knowing full well you were a girl, I died that day.  I died and in the ashes was a rebirth of a man.  And this man was a father of a beautiful baby girl and he was never more in love with any creature on this Earth than you.  My heart hurt so much with love that I couldn't breathe.  And I was scared, too.  What the hell was I going to do with a girl, turn her over and say, "Yep, she's yours... figure out, other woman"?  Was I going to lock you up from the world and hope that a boy wouldn't dare take one step onto our lawn?

No, I couldn't do any of that because I wasn't always going to be able to.   My biggest problem in life is that I've tried to just solve the issues in our lives and not actually let someone figure them out themselves.   Instead of giving a general idea of what needs to be done, it was just easier for me to say, "Just give it here."  I can't be the answer for everything, so you need to know how to take care of yourself.  That's why I am so damn hard on you all the time.  That's why I constantly say take a hands off approach and try to let you figure certain things out.  Turns out, it works to a fault.  You're smarter than me and can do more than I ever could at your age and it gets you into trouble when you shouldn't attempt certain things.

So, in about a decade, you're going to attempt something else that I can't control or figure out.  Dating.

It's something I never could do right, then, and I still can't, now.  It's probably why I didn't do it that often, when I was a teen, and pretty much gave up on trying to figure it out when I got out of college.

In that way, I can't give you advice on how to date or how to find love.  That's something else you'll have to figure out on your own, and with any luck, you'll be better at than I was.  I pretty much know you will be, so no worries.

But, what I will say to you is something someone once told me about this kind of thing.

Be in something extraordinary.  Don't settle.  If they're not the best person for you, then you shouldn't be with them.  But remember this, too.  Guys don't know anything more than you do.  So, you have to be careful, but you also have to be better.

Now, I've made it as a personal mission to make sure you don't grow up just being a girl.  If you choose the tea parties and princesses route, I won't love you any less.  But, I know you, and you're rough and tumble just as much as you are tiaras and tutus.  I've hated how gender biased toys are in this world and you can be a scientist or a beauty queen with equal chance for success.  But what you need to realize is that with boys, we are pretty much stupid.  We need things spelled out for us but don't think we don't like you because we don't say it.  Sometimes we're just afraid you'll laugh at us.  So, give us a chance to show you before you break our hearts.

Also, don't let a boy hold the door for you, if he wouldn't do it for anyone else who isn't a girl.  Don't let him pick up the check if it means that much to pay your own way.  But talk about it.  Let him know why you would rather him not, if you so choose.  Then, let him pay anyway, just so he knows it's not an invitation for anything else.  You're not obligated to do anything.  You are far too independent to be coddled and even though chivalry is a nice concept, you are certainly no one's damsel in distress.

Definitely don't let a guy treat you badly and don't ever accept that you deserve it.  Just as you should never treat a guy that way.  As I have tried to raise you to be just as equal in strength and character as a boy, they are just as sensitive and vulnerable as girls.  But there are some men AND WOMEN out there that feel that people should be treated a certain way for whatever reason and it's not right.  You will never happiness at the receiving end of a harsh word or fist.  Also realize that it works both ways, too.

Be clear with a boy, because chances are more of them are going to fall madly in love with you than you will with them.  If you're not into them, let them know up front.  Be decent enough to explain that you don't feel that way.  Believe me, it will be a lot easier on the both of you let him down easy and early.   If not, he might shower you with praise and affection until you want to crawl out of your skin and he won't understand why it's not working.  Worse yet, he might overstep boundaries because he felt you were a tease.  I just don't have the money to bail you out of jail when you kick his ass for stepping over the line.

If you like a boy, and there's a chance he likes you, tell him.  Don't play games.  Don't make him pass tests and try to figure out his intentions.  The worst thing that ever happened by telling someone how you feel was for them to not return the sentiment.  No harm. No foul.  It's embarrassing and will probably hurt for a bit, but being honest is better and you might find it works a lot more.

Oh, boy... when it comes to um... being intimate....OK, man, pull it together, respect yourself.  I cannot stop you from having physical needs and I just hope you are safe and healthy about it.  Don't ever, EVER, think that you will make someone love you more because you give into them physically.  If you are not ready, then you are not ready.  And, don't pressure them because you think that they need to show you how they feel by being intimate.   And this will probably get me in trouble because, well, I'm a guy and it's still different, but you can say no at any time and it's not wrong to do so.  Any man worth your time will immediately understand and comply.

However, understand that even though you have every right to say no, that word may fall on deaf ears.  It's not you, it's them.  You should never be ashamed for being who you are, but sometimes, people are assholes and usually, it's someone you trust.  Don't ever forget that no matter how strong you are, there is always someone stronger.  I will never blame you for something happening, but you cannot expect everyone to be the best possible person in every scenario.  That being said, I will go Liam Nesson on their ass.  Just understand that you have a power that isn't fully quite understandable by you or others who are interested in you.

And eventually, you will probably find yourself with someone you love enough to want to marry.  For all that is decent and holy, let's not have a huge wedding.  I mean if you really want one I will do whatever I can to give it to you but realize that your wedding day is never for you.  It's always for other people.  It's for a DJ or band to be heard.  It's for a photographer to add to their portfolio.  It's for a caterer to drum up business.  It's for family and friends to share in your day or get free food and drink at the cost of a crock pot.   If you want a day for you, do whatever it is that makes you happy.  And that means finding someone who makes you happy, too.

Find someone who you will never get tired of in life.  Find someone who surprises you every day with something new and unexpected.  Find someone who will fight with you as much as for you.  Find someone who isn't afraid to cry because you hurt them or astound them.  Find someone who makes your heart break just like you broke mine on that very first day.  Find someone who pushes you to be better and will be better because of you.  Find someone you can talk to about anything.  Find someone that doesn't just like everything you like but likes their own things and appreciates that you like yours.  And be the same way.  You don't have to adopt every little thing they love, just love them for loving it.

And for all the love in the world, find someone you love as they are, not as you want them to be.  Don't try and change someone.  Don't try and save someone.   Find the man you want, not the man you need.  Because, quite frankly, you don't need a man.  You need a partner.  You need a teammate.  You need an anchor.  You want a love.  You want a family.  You want someone to complete you.   You want to find someone that even when they are at their worst, they are still better than everyone else.  You want someone that even when the world falls apart, they will be right there with you and you'll both save each other.  You want someone extraordinary.  You want someone better than me.  You need that, too.  But, no matter who you pick, they are the lucky one.  Because you picked me once and I am the luckiest man on Earth and I will always love you no matter who you love: man, woman, or whatever.

Just do it all after I'm dead.  OK?  Because the day you come home and tell me you're in love, it will probably kill me. 

I love you sweetie.

 

Newton's 3rd Law of Conflicting Advice

Random people will dispense with advice about life, but for every nugget of wisdom there is an equal yet opposite saying.

So, which do you listen to?  Do you follow your heart, your gut, or your brain?

Well, never give up, but know when to quit, because absence makes the heart grow fonder when it’s out of sight and out of mind.     

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, hastily making waste but throwing caution to the wind.  So, dive right in to the deep end early to get the worm.    

If you really love something, set it free.   If it comes back, it’s meant to be, but hold on tight with both hands because opportunity knocks but once.  Even if birds of a feather flock together, opposites do attract.  So, go out and get that stitch in time because all good things come to those who wait.

While too many cooks spoil the soup, many hands make light work for fools that seldom differ when great minds think alike.

Truth is, no one knows what the hell they’re doing.   They only know their own experiences and even then they could all be bad.  So, go out and take the bull by the horns but if you’re going to live by the sword, be prepared to die by it.   And don’t complain about walking in another man’s shoes because you were told not to judge a book by its cover even if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck.

Live.  Laugh.  Love.  But if you have nothing nice to say, shut it.

Don’t let someone else dictate your path.  They don’t have to travel it.   Just don’t do it blindly…. Even if love and justice are.

I am a jack of all trades yet master of none and just remember, I told you so.

Weddings and Toasts

Weddings are a polarizing subject, depending on who you speak to.   To the involved, it’s a lot of stress and work over a year or more boiled down to one day of joy or frustration.   The problem is you’ll only remember it if it goes wrong.  

To the bridal party, it’s an opportunity to really define the bonds of friendship.  How much of the bride can you take before you are no longer BFFs?   Let’s face it, grooms are easy.  If they’re awake, they’re fine.   

To the families, it becomes a testament to micromanagement and tolerance of one another.   The majority of the costs usually fall to the bride's family, while the groom's parents usually pick up the rehearsal dinner and bar tab at the reception.  Then there's little sniping back and forth about the seating arrangements.  Who is closest to the bar?  Who gets to the buffet first?  Can we put Uncle Wears-bib-overalls-to-a-funeral next to the snobs from their side of the family?  If you're lucky, the fathers won't be involved in fisticuffs before the cake gets cut.

And to the guests, it’s an excuse to get sloppy drunk at an open bar, to ridicule the people at the party to their date, and to possibly do stupid things all for the price of a gift no one will ever use and an afternoon dressed up in uncomfortable clothes which will undoubtedly be disheveled by the bridal dance.

But, you have to look beyond all these things, though, and find the magic.   You have to see the subtext.  You have to see the inner-workings of the process to understand how much hell you have to go through, just to make it to the point where you can give advice to future couples and not be full of shit.

That’s what I did over the weekend. 

It started out innocent enough.  My family travelled towards the middle of Pennsyltuckey for one of my best friend’s wedding.    We arrived on a Thursday night and stayed until Saturday.  We planned for minimal impact as I brought along a suit, a change of clothes and another backup shirt.   I was way ill prepared for the event.

Thursday night, my buddy stayed at the hotel, while his wife to be stayed at the house.  I decided to help him relax by taking him out for a few drinks with my Father-in-law.  We went to a little bar in Lewisburg called The Bull Run.  The night started out rather innocent.  We talked over beers and then it got interesting.   After a Blue Moon and two Smithwicks I decided to take up the karaoke microphone and serenade my brother in harms with Georgia Satellites’  “Keep Your Hands To Yourself”.  Not too bad.  Then a bunch of girls from Bucknell came in and it got even more interesting.   By the end of the night, I was completely trashed and singing, badly, “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” to the coeds who turned out to be all together… like romantically.   It also didn’t help I was wearing a shirt that said, “Let’s get drunk and make some bad decisions.”

Let's Get Drunk and Make Bad Decisions

Friday, feeling not too bad, we went to the wedding in full suits.  It was outdoors and just hot and humid enough to melt.  My daughter was dying of thirst and proclaimed that “I am so thirsty that I hope it rains so I can drink it and cool off.”

It poured from the beginning of the four minute ceremony until the end.  Well played, universe.

Now, the typical person would look at this event and see an unmitigated disaster.  All the planning, all the stress, all the work, all gone in an instant with a deluge of water.  The superstitious person would take this as a good sign.  I took it as a chance for this couple to remember their wedding day forever.  And I told the bride, “You know that thing you worry about happening on your wedding day?  That thing that could ruin it all.   Well, that was it.  That is the worst thing that will happen today, I guarantee it.  And you know what?  It wasn’t that bad.   We got through the wedding in four minutes, you’re married, and no one is hot anymore.”  

I forgot about the fact that none of us were going to be able to wear these clothes to the reception, unfortunately.  There was one guest laundry facility in the hotel and it was being used.  So, I ended up wearing the shirt from the night before and jeans, because it was the cleanest change of clothes I had to wear.

So, there I am in jeans and a t-shirt, seated at a wedding alongside people in suits.  Worse yet,  I was the best man and had to give a toast.  A toast I worked very hard on writing and was typed up,  printed out, folded in quarters, and nestled snuggly in my suit coat pocket.   It was a horrible mess and disintegrated in my hands.   But I used that.  I used that and the fact that I was now dressed in street clothes to get my point across.  I love these people, dearly, and it was probably the easiest speech I ever gave from memory.  

I stood up and immediately acknowledged what happened to my clothes and pulled out the sopping mess of a speech to great laughs.   The audience was mine.   I spoke about how I had known the groom for 17 years and how he never took my advice about anything.  His past relationships came up, playfully mind you, and without malice.  Then I mentioned how the first meeting with his bride, during a vacation, immediately resulted in acceptance and love from complete strangers.  She was, in fact, the perfect person for him.  He had finally taken my advice.  Then, a cell phone went off, saving me at a transitional dead end.  It was the familiar ringtone of the Theme From The Godfather, emanating from a friend who everyone knew and I used that to my advantage to bring back the crowd.   I then proceeded to give the following advice to the couple.

1. Communicate.  I don't mean talk to each other.  I mean listen.  Tell each other what you want.  Share your hopes, thoughts, fears, everything.  Don't expect each other to guess or automatically know.  That's years down the road.  You guys are still only three years into your relationship.  You have a lot to learn about each other.
   
   
2. Fight.  I don't mean physically, mind you.  There is nothing that could be more detrimental to your longevity than giving up on something just because you don't care.  Whether it's an argument over paint colors or money or the future of your marriage. If you are passionate about it, you need to defend that.  Exhaust all possibilities or you will set up a pattern of abuse that will erode your individuality and integrity and resentment will creep in quickly.
   
   
3. Don't Get Comfortable.  Marriage is not about reinventing the wheel.   After a year or two, you'll get into a rhythm and things will become automatic.  You may not even notice it.  It's gets boring and stagnated and eventually you start to just ignore each other because you think that being married means never being alone.  Always stay on edge and on top of things.
   
   
4. Have Fun.  Don't be afraid to do stupid things every once in awhile.  Get out of your comfort zone and fail.  Be spontaneous. I just had my 20 year reunion last weekend and this couple who graduated in 1951, crashed it.  This 87 year old guy was out dancing with a bunch of 38 year old women and he basically owned the joint.  His date , who he had reconnected with after 60 years, told me "He loves to just have fun.  That's what you gotta do.  You gotta have fun."  They had separate rooms that night, but I think only one got used.

Every word was true.   I spoke from experience.  I spoke from failure.  I spoke from the heart.  I can only hope they remember it as much as they do their wedding.

Bride and Prejudice

I wrote this out in my head on a synaptic cocktail napkin while attending my cousin’s wedding in York, PA. I had planned a whole series on weddings involving tips and other anecdotes for couples looking to get married but decided against it in favor of a little advice and wisdom to my two year old who is dancing with her cousin to a God awful Dance House remix version of Journey's “Don’t Stop Believing.”

I know. It’s blasphemous. I expected more from a DJ chosen by a couple who first met at a hardcore punk concert called, “Kill Your Idols” and now culminated their courtship by entering into the reception hall to Joey Ramone’s cover of “What a Wonderful World.” While the bride and her attendants were more traditional, the guys donned red Chucks to match their red ties.

Song and shoe selections, aside, I have only a few pieces of Fatherly wisdom for my little one as I dread the years to come that will be filled with boys and men and headaches and heartaches. If only I could lock her away until she’s 30. Undoubtedly, being my child, she’ll be able to figure a way out using a bobby pin and a duct tape.

First off, little one, as I refer to her in the blogosphere, elope. We’ll give you the money from the wedding to start off on your new life together or at least put a sizable down payment on a house.
Weddings have been done to death. You spend a lot of money and time trying to find all the pieces to this ornate puzzle and it all gets ruined by some weird thing. Not to mention you don’t even get to enjoy the day because you are being pulled in so many different directions that when all is said and done, you don’t even remember those pictures of you being taken. Go, get married on a beach or in a small ceremony and enjoy a nice time alone. These days, weddings are more a show for family and friends than they are about commemorating an event. If you are dead set on a ceremony then fine, but if there is a hint of doubt, I’ll try my best to save you and that boy the anguish of all that planning gone to waste.

If you do plan on going through with a ceremony, do it in the early to mid Fall. Everyone and their sister gets married in the summer. It’s hard enough trying to schedule everything as it is, having to deal with the peak wedding season is ridiculous. Also, it’s freaking hot, although the Summer of 2009 panned out to be unseasonably cool and wet. If you wait until Fall you get cooler temperatures and better colors with the foliage. That is if you plan on getting married around here. The wedding we were just at was at a place called Lauxmont Farms in Wrightsville, PA. It was a beautiful reception in their Rotunda but at three hours away, we were ready to make you walk home after being a little cranky for two straight days.

Don’t get hung up on the details. Before you know it the deal is done and you don’t remember any of it, anyway. Hell, I remember going through the whole ceremony only to suddenly forget my left from my right when it came time to put the rings on. I handed your mother the wrong hand and she didn’t even think twice about it. It wasn’t until we went down to hand the flowers to both sets of parents that my Father laughingly whispered into my ear, “ You’ve got the ring on the wrong hand, genius.” I covered but if he noticed, I’m sure someone else did.

Let’s just realize that bridesmaid’s dresses are perhaps the ugliest thing in the world no matter how you slice it. Again, I bring you back to point one as it is a stupid dress that no one will ever wear after the wedding day. You can’t take them back and you can’t resell them because who in their right mind would want such an ugly dress. So, just remember, you are the star and you don’t need to make everyone else around you look worse by dressing them in loud colors with unflattering angles.

Go on your honeymoon and don’t skimp. Your Mother and I opted to try and be a little frugal by going to Niagara Falls for four days since we were a month from Christmas. She spent most of the time sick as a dog in bed and the weather was cold in Canada in November….go figure. It’s been five years and since you came along, the odds of us being able to go on that official honeymoon I promised her are about as good as your Grandmother actually having that yard sales she keeps saying she’ll have. Honestly, my mother has loads of boxes in the garage labeled “Yard Sale” They’ve lived in that house 25 years and those boxes were from 20 years ago.

Lastly, do me a favor and marry someone you can feel comfortable with before you get married. Realize that while 50% of marriages may end in divorce, a good percentage of the ones that do survive do so out of fear of being a statistic. Settling for someone is never an answer and anything that you find intolerable as a couple before you get married won’t change afterwards. Men and women go through life letting their parents’ set the tone for how they perceive a partner. “You have to train a man.” “Remember, he’s dumb and doesn’t get it.” “You’re the one who is really in charge.” “Women are too concerned with the little things.” “Women shop and aren’t very smart about things.” These are stereotypes that are a product of all us growing up in the shadow of our parents. While your Mother and I are not exactly carbon cutouts of our parents, I believe we got the best parts and will try to at least pass that onto you. Just remember, it’s easy to get married, it’s hard to stay that way.

So, as I sit here watching you twirl around on your toes to this horrible version of a beloved classic I am saddened that someday you will grow up and you will get married. Although, I’ll be happy that you’ve found someone to love and that loves you, the sting of being replaced as the man in your life will hurt all the same, if not more. I can only hope that we can teach you well in this world and that you find that one person that gets you and can make you happy. My parting advice is this. Treat each other with respect, be friends first then lovers, and for the sake of all involved, don’t subject us to the Electric Slide.

Want To Make Money on Cafepress? Ask Mongo.

It happened again. Some kind soul out there bought a couple shirts from the Mongo Store I keep on Cafepress. That's three shirts in less than three months. I guess I shouldn't be too excited but I don't put a lot of thought or time into managing that store. Perhaps I should, though.

The latest items I've sold on Get Mongo!

You see, Mongo was an idea for a website long before it became the wonderful blog you love to read every day. In 2006, a friend and I were kicking around business ideas and it is only clear to me now that he was probably using my input to do his MBA class homework. He's like that. You never see it but usually, you're helping him do something for his own gain. Anyway, we thought with all the niche websites out there that exist and become virally popular, why can't we operate one. Set up shop, run it for a couple years and sell it for a profit. Neither one of us are an expert at any of this, mind you.

That's how Ask Mongo was perceived. I say perceived because it never made it past the idea stage. I took on this persona of Mongo, based on another coworker who was a bit of a brute. Not so much in the sense that he was mean, but he just made these statements that were just too funny. I would mimic them in a monosyllabic style of speaking and Mongo became a full fledged character. Often, I would often just burst out into angry speak. I'd knock something over or drop something and the results were rather hilarious. Then it only became a matter of time. We'd joke around and my friend would ask me a serious question and Mongo would answer. "Mongo no care about HD. Mongo smash!"

That's when it happened. What if we created a simple website that used a search engine style approach. Kind of like a twisted magic eight ball. If we could figure out a way to assign certain keywords to relevant phrases, you could Ask Mongo a question and get a hilarious response. Nothing very high brow and if you asked a question that didn't match up to any key words, you would get some pre-generated random response like, "Why Mongo care? Go away before Mongo smash!"

Unfortunately, neither of us had the extra free time or expertise in designing the site. I also didn't want to guy buy a domain and just pay for a blank site until I figured it all out. Alas, Ask Mongo never came to fruition. In fact, the only way it ever existed was a test site built in Excel. I was taking some classes in Excel and figured out a way to get a set number of responses that would match up to a key word in a question field. Still, I had the graphical designs for Mongo in my computer and began tooling around with the idea of putting the image and slogan on a shirt. I went over to Cafepress and opened up a basic store, which is free. I added my images to a couple of products, did all the tagging on my images, and other things you can do with a basic store and that was about it. I waited and I waited. I did some specific keyword searching and my products were there but unless you were looking for something specifically named Mongo the stuff was buried three or four pages deep in the results.

I kind of forgot all about Mongo. I left the site up but didn’t do any additional work on it. I did use Cafepress to make some pretty sweet calendars for my wife and other members of my family. You can make your own products and pay base price for them. Anything you wish to sell, you add a markup and that’s how you make money. I marked up most of my products by about $3.00 and hoped for the best. This was almost three years ago. I tried to make another run at selling products using MySpace but that was worthless. Again, I didn’t have time to do any extensive work or marketing and pretty much left the site go. That was until February of 2008. I’m all about free stuff and found that I could start this blog on blogger for free. I figured, I have a lot to say. Whether or not people care is another story, but regardless, it could be fun. It also provided me a reason to have and promote the store. If I could gain enough of an audience, perhaps I could drive people towards the store. Thus, Mongo Angry! Mongo Smash! Was born. I parked a link and a couple of products on the side of my blog and figured that maybe I could get a few wayward people into my Cafepress store.

I made my first sale in December of 2008. It happened without me even knowing about it. I just took five minutes one day and did a quick rundown of my stores and saw that I had a few dollars in my account. Someone had bought a shirt. I felt validate and vindicated and I only made $3.00. But it was 300% profit. I didn’t spend any money on advertising or marketing. I simply created a store and did the bare minimum. How cool is that? Now, I know I am not going to be able to quit my day job making t-shirts. But a few extra dollars can’t hurt, right? Then, it happened again in February of this year. Another person bought matching men and women’s shirts! That’s another $6.00. Hey, this is awesome.

By now, I had already thought up two more stores, Pop Culture Couture and Retro Rags. Each site had only one design for sale. That is the major drawback for Basic shops. You can have all the images you want but you can only assign any particular product to one design. If you are disciplined enough you could constantly rotate images but who wants to devote that much work to a few extra dollars. You could also theoretically own hundreds of stores but again, too much work for the reward. That was before I made those sales. I am seriously considering a premium shop. For $5.00 a month I figure it’s worth it. It might actually pay off some more. Here are some of the benefits.

• Personal shop on CafePress.com with your own shop URL (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Set up multiple pages and sections to display your products and designs
• Choose from over 70 high-quality products for your shop (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Unlimited use of the same product within your shop
• Customize your shop by uploading your logo and shop description (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Create a shop design of your own. This also enables you to create a seamless retail extension of your own web site
• Customization tools to personalize colors and fonts used within your shop
• Choose from custom templates to instantly design your shop – No coding skills needed
• Organize your designs and products into categories and sub-categories
• Create custom layouts to showcase your newest designs and popular products
• Promote your shop in the CafePress.com Marketplace (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Promotional tools to help drive more traffic to your shop (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Newsletter system to help you keep your customers up-to-date on your latest products and designs (Also part of Basic Shops)
• Option to create your own shopkeeper profile to tell your customers about your organization, mission, or yourself. (Also part of Basic Shops)

For $60, that ain’t bad. But does it work? I don’t know it. Cafepress offers a 15 day free trial but in order for me to see the full benefits I would have to do a lot of prep work so that I could launch everything on Day 1. Otherwise, I could still be tweaking controls and have not seen a sale by Day 15 which would kind of defeat the purpose. Still, I might take them up on the 15 days for free because it’s an extra 15 days for free, duh! Regardless of my choice, there is a lot of work ahead and I think I might spend what little free time I have doing some research and getting together some models. Now, I thought I was bloody brilliant with my McScrewed idea. However, Cafepress thought my original design was too close to an actual logo and flagged it.

Old and new design side by side.

Had I opened up a Premium Shop under the 15 day trial with my original design, I would have been hosed.

So, there you have it. I probably will open up a premium shop and consolidate all of my products into different categories. I could definitely have the Mongo store and then have my Pop Culture themed products split up into different categories. I might even be able to slice and dice it by design and by product. The more ways I can present the ideas the more people will find something based on the own style of searching. I may tag this post so that I can revisit it after some time to give you a heads up on how things are going. Who knows? You might take what advice I’ve given and be the next t-shirt mogul. At least you might be able to spring for gas each month. If you Ask Mongo, every little bit helps.