Interesting Business Names

Hats off to people who can come up with really catchy names for their businesses.

In Wasilla, a town next door to my hometown, there is The Happy Hooker – a towing company who’s towing trucks are all pink.

Right next door to them is a business called The Big Black Rubber. I honestly do not know what they are – but think maybe they are those rubber liner beds for pickups? I’m kind of afraid to ask…

Out near my doctor, I saw a pediatric dentist who named his company The Molar Bear. I thought that was quite catchy!

Closer to home, Bryan once thought to go into the real estate business a while back, so I came up with the name B-Real for him: a combination of his first initial and the first word in Real Estate. I even created a business card for him with bees and everything. It was quite clever, I thought.

For myself, if I ever decided to open a tea shop, I could name it Truth Teas. My logo would be a giant upper-case letter T with smaller lower-case letters “ruth” and “eas” stacked on top of each other beside it. Again, quite clever, I thought.

What funny/interesting business names have you seen out and about town?

My Favorite Mug

Back in September of the year 2000 I did a week-long hiking trip in the Smoky Mountain National Park. The company I went with was Country Walkers: they put us up in some really nice places, took us to numerous famous trails (I actually hiked on the Appalachian Trail for a little while!), and fed us at some really fancy restaurants.

One of the places we stayed at was The Swag, in North Carolina. Oh boy, what a fantastic place that was! And still is, I might add. I remember the drive up to the place was a long, winding road that switch-backed up the mountain. The main lodge is a beautiful, old, rustic looking building with numerous outbuildings surrounding gorgeous grounds.

Since I was traveling solo, I got a room all to myself. They put me in what they call Gail’s Room with a fireplace, a balcony overlooking the Smoky Mountains, and the tallest most comfortable feather bed! I had to have a little stepstool just to get into the bed and didn’t ever want to leave once I snuggled in under the hand-sewn quilt. They even provided a CD of relaxing music to listen to. My one complaint about that room was that I only got to stay there a couple days and had to leave during the day to go on our scheduled hikes.

I loved that place so much I bought myself a mug to remember them by and carried it all the way home. I have used that mug pretty much every day since then – until one day I noticed the crack.

Oh no!!!

On impulse, I contacted them via email and told them my dilemma, asking if they might be able to send me a replacement. I’m not sure what I was expecting but was pleasantly surprised when they actually responded, saying they would love to be able to replace my mug.

I sent them a picture of the broken one and sat back to await their reply. A few days later I got an actual phone call from Sage, the person in charge of Guest Services. She was very friendly and told me all about the mugs they had available. She got my address and I gave her my credit card information. As happens so often to us up here in the northland, she thought AK stood for Arkansas – and was quite surprised to learn it was Alaska instead!

A week later, I got a box in the mail – My MUG!!!

It’s much bigger than my original mug, and I have to admit I don’t care for the new logo much – but I am so happy they sent me a replacement!

If you’re ever in the area  I can highly recommend them!

Indoor Swimming Pool

We got a notice from the City of Palmer last month alerting us to the fact that our water usage had gone way up for that month, indicating a possible leak somewhere. Sure enough, Bryan went down into the crawlspace and discovered our new indoor swimming pool.

Not really. But it was a leaky hot water heater, with a LOT of water where there should not be any.

Thankfully Paragon Mechanical came to our rescue, sending out one of their guys to help us almost the same day we called them.

Turns out the tank was fine – it was the connections that failed.

We took this opportunity to relocate the tank out of our crawlspace and into our garage, where it really should have been all along.

The guy was able to get the tank all fixed up and running in one day.

If you’re in the valley and need plumbing work done – we can highly recommend Paragon Mechanical.

Healy!

The Weekend Get-Away for July took us to Healy this time. We headed off after work on Thursday afternoon, so didn’t arrive until late that night. It’s quite a long drive but we love the area so thought it was worth going anyway.

The place we rented this time was a Yurt! Both Bryan and I stayed in yurts in Mongolia (they call them a Ger instead of a Yurt) and loved it. The gers in Mongolia were not nearly as nice as this place was, though! It was very well laid out, with plenty of space for us to work on our projects. It had a nice little kitchen with running water, a stove, and all the gadgets you could ever need. The outhouse was set back a ways from the yurt on a nice little pathway.

Just down the road there was a lake for Bryan to go fishing. He got his pole wet a couple times, not really catching anything but still having a good time enjoying the great outdoors.

There was a ranch nearby with big work horses – really amazing animals. They had covered wagons you could ride around in if you wanted to go sight-seeing. We did not do that, but we did go visit the horses each time we went out for a walk.

The 49^th State Brewery is one of Bryan’s favorites, so of course we had to have dinner there one night. They always have good food, and he got his growler filled with his favorite so had plenty of beer throughout the weekend. I just love the wall behind the bar: those are actual trees – not a wallpaper!

The weather wall all over the map: pouring down rain one day, then clear blue skies the next. All in all, we had a great time.

Riding Horses, Painting, and Drinking Wine

Last week, I decided I needed to do something for myself for a change, so ended up at a nearby ranch for a Ladies Retreat! That basically means that a bunch of ladies got together and rode horses for a while, then relocated to the nearby house to paint a picture, eat a bite of dinner, and drink lots of wine.

It was fun. I grew up with horses but had not been on one in a very long time. My recent trip down the Grand Canyon on a mule had reminded me of how much I enjoyed it. I will admit, however, that the horse they put me on was a bit much for me to handle. His name was Hootch (named after one of my favorite movies: Turner & Hootch) and he was a little pill to say the least. He knew right away that he could pretty much do anything he wanted to, and I could not make him behave.

And as luck would have it the weather turned sour on us that day: it was not raining, it was POURING! I discovered that my spiffy new hat is not waterproof, my rain pants eventually do let the water soak in, my 25-year-old raincoat no longer works very well, and I really REALLY should have been wearing my Xtra-Tuffs. I cannot believe how wet we all were – which may explain some of the attitude I was getting from Hootch.  

Once we’d all gotten thoroughly soaked, we headed inside to warm up and eat our dinner. Our host’s husband had been cooking Pulled Pork all day long, not exactly my kind of food – but I’m told it was very tasty. The wine table had pretty much any kind of wine you could think of – so we all got to sip while we painted our horse.

Desert was a chocolate brownie with clotted cream and caramel sauce! I decided it was totally worth breaking my gluten-free diet - since it was a special occasion and all that. It doesn't look like much, but it sure tasted good.

Rustic Knife Class

We did a fun thing this weekend: we took a Rustic Knife Class with the Palmer Folk School. They are a local blacksmith and his family who are promoting such skills as blacksmithing, leatherwork, broom making, and the like. I ran across their advertisement a few weeks ago and thought it was about time for Bryan and I to do something unique together.

We had so much fun! It was hard work, though – I really do not have much strength in my arms/hands, so had to have more help than Bryan did. Jack, the blacksmith teaching the class, was very helpful and was a good teacher.

We started with a piece of metal in a trapezoidal shape. We heated it up till it was glowing red hot. Then we beat on it with a sledgehammer. Then just kept repeating the process (heat it up – beat it up – heat it up – beat it up) until we ended up with something that vaguely resembles a knife’s blade.

The handle is made from a block of wood. We poked a hole it in and attached it to our knife. Now all we need to do is sand it down so it fits our hands and then stain it a nice color. Of course, we also have to work on the blade a bit, sharpening it so it’s usable.

But how cool is that = we now have knives that we made by our own hands!