Our biggest technical worry so far, one of them anyway, has been if the new oven will bake the cookies evenly on the different baking sheets, from top to bottom and at the front and back of the oven. The Italian made Unox oven came out of the test quite proudly. It's very easy to work with, and it gives you 70 options to program various temperatures, baking times, moisture levels, and even in three different steps each! Don't mind the details... I'm just happy that it works so good. The only drawback is the noise it makes... sort of like the sound of the blowers that people use to blow leaves away from the fronts of their houses, on low power.

We're also at the final stages of packaging decisions. We found a company that makes an organic (bio) oil resistant film for use in food packaging, and the samples they sent us are great, although they cost a little more than other choices... but then, everything "bio" is always more expensive. Anyway, it's important because our cookies contain a good amount of butter and chocolate, and we don't want them to soak through to the outer package... which is also made of natural paper. We knew since the early days of thinking about this cookie project, that everything about the "Cabana" cookies was going to be made from all natural materials, in most cases completely bio, even the packaging... of course, other than the website, which is probably the most wonderful "man-made" thing of this century... and an all important part of CookieCabana.com

I've been thinking for a while, and I want to say a warm thank you to all of my wife's friends and work colleagues, and to the people around me, for so graciously enjoying our trial cookies these past months... it takes a lot of testing to get everything just right, which means making a lot of tasty cookies, and even a few experimental oddities. Thanks everybody for the good suggestions and for the motivation you keep giving us. This "starting a buisness from zero" venture has been quite engaging for us, and you've been a great source of energy.

We sat for a few hours with Benjamin, our web guru, yesterday afternoon. After talking as usual about philosophy, politics, the fate of the world and such things for a little while, he showed us the progress of the CookieCabana.com website. What we saw looked good, needing only a few visual adjustments. The "back end" as he calls it, or the workings behind the public face of the website, is being developed in parallel. This is a rather complicated programming feat, and it is fortunately going forward with relatively few glitches. We also took a very un-scientific opinion poll from our kids, which did reveal some points both to Benjamin and to us... damn, kids can be so brutally honest! But, that's what we need... honest critique. The only thing that keeps me a bit on edge is timing. I hope the final website will be ready when the countdown hits 00:00, and although even if the "final" products is not completely ready by then the site will still be functional, we really want to go online "finished" on the first go. Let's think positive... "Yes We Can".

During the past few days... I had a meeting at the bank to set up a credit facility to cover costs of expansion when necessary. The thing is, we have to do this now, so if and when we need money for doing something quickly it will be available on very short notice. The meeting was great, everybody seems excited and interested in our idea and business plan, not to mention the taste of the cookies themselves... but nowadays credit decisions are made by computer programs not bank officers. Anyway, I have to complete various forms and provide all the information the bank wants... and then the computer will tell us how much credit we are worth.

Also, we ordered the boxes the cookies will reach all of our thousands of faithful customers that we are going to have in. Here, I'd like to tell you a little story from our private lives. Our dog Cookie, a brown and white Dalmation, is the embodiment of positive thinking. Whenever we are in the kitchen, he stays patiently around. Everytime someone walks in the general direction of his food bowl with somthing in their hand , he follows them knowing that whatever is in their hand is going to the food bowl. Although during the course of making a meal quite a few trips are made to the refrigerator, the cupboards, or other parts of the kitchen, and things don't usually end up in Cookie's food bowl, his positive attitude remains as strong as ever. The only image in Cookie's mind is that any movement toward his food bowl is meant in his favor. Of course, every now and then his positive outlook on life is rewarded with a treat.

He has taught me a lesson. Keep thinking positive... and good things will happen. What do you think?

This was a new question for us. The lady, friendly, knowledgable and helpful, at the Küchentechnik shop where we bought our first speialized oven, heavy-duty cutting machine, and other equipment, was asking whether we wanted cookie sheets with holes punched in them or just plain ones. She explained that each one distributed heat differently, and that it might affect the way our cookies would look. We bought three each of both plain and perforated sheets. We are still learning, and a lot of things must be learned by trial and error.

One oven like ours has the capacity of baking 5 orders of 12 cookies each every 15 minutes. That means 20 orders per hour, or 160 orders in one eight-hour shift. It sounds like a lot of cookies, and it may take a little time to reach the point that we will need another oven, but considering that just Germany and the countries surounding it have a total population of roughly 200,000,000 people, we hope that an additional oven will not be too far into the future.

As we were leaving the Küchentechnik shop, I was so amazed by the array of different machines and equipment that are used everyday in restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and generally everywhere food is prepared, that I confessed to my wife I was becoming more and more interested in the food business. This really is a new thing for me... during the past many years I have worked as a salesman, banker, teacher, industrial buyer, and company manager... but never in the food business. Who knows, maybe this my real "calling".

I am talking about time, of course. It has been a busy few weeks, mostly concerning things other than cookies, and it's nice to be writing again. It's amazing, when you write something for people online, you feel a sort of attachment, or even obligation to keep writing... you feel guilty when the time gap between some entries is longer than you'd like it to be. Could this be becaue you feel a kind of appreciation and togetherness with those unkown, unseen, and unnmaed people who have heard of from friends, or have otherwise stumbled upon this blog, and who come back to check things out every now and then? Maybe. I even know of a few friends who take a peek here now and again.

So... I checked the Cookie Cabana site this morning. It shows 57 days and a few hours left before going live.

In a way, starting a business from scratch is kind of like flying in a plane. You get ready well before your flight... think about how you are going to go to the airport... get there... check in... go through security... walk through duty free shops looking for nothing in particular along the way... go to the gate... sit and wait for boarding to begin... line up in a hurry when boarding is announced... get on the plane... find your seat... see if the luggage containers overhead have any more space left in them... sit and buckle the seat-belt around your waist... notice the color of the seats and other details around you... take a quick look at the cabin crew... watch the stewardess show you what to do if something drastic happens... hear the sound of the engines get louder and louder... and enjoy those last safe moments as the plane is still rolling on the runway before its takeoff. No matter how brave you are or how frequently you fly, your heart beats a little faster during takeoff. Finally, you feel the plane rise above the ground. You are flying... Right now, we are waiting for the gate leading to Air Cabana flight number 2010 to open! And yes, we are a little anxious.

Yesterday evening, we ordered our first oven, a special cutter for chopping up the ingredients, and a few other necessary pieces of equipment. You know, I never really thought about the price difference between professional equipment and those we buy for our homes. It is huge. Cookie Cabana is in the "money eating" phase at the moment. It seems we keep spending money on things that have not produced or sold even one cookie yet... and some things we never thought of before we started this adventure. But... I 've always heard that "you have to spend money before you make money", I just hope the "making" part will be as active as the "spending" part.

By the way, while I was away, my wife took advantage of my absence and arranged everything in the way she had palnned. She even painted the room we have come to call "Factory Nr. 1". It is now in the colors of the website. I don't know how this whole thing would get off the ground without her.

This is the title of a book I read over the Christmas holidays. It is written by a New York based copywriter lady, and it did get me thinking about some concepts that will be helpful in writing the various parts of the CookieCabana website content. The writing and style of the book is decidedly American, but some of the subjects covered in the book can be used anywhere you want to communicate with people.

The author is a strong supporter of using "social media" like facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. to find and talk to people you want to do business with. It's interesting to know that as of late 2008 myspace had 242 million members, and facebook had 100 million.

Just picture this... footbal is the most popular sport around the world... the world's largest stadium,Rŭngrado May First Stadium, in Pyongyang, North Korea, holds only 150,000 people. The home of FC Barcelona, Camp Nou, has a capacity of 98,000 people, and is the world's 10th largest stadium. Allianz Arena in the north of Munich, home of Fußball-Club Bayern München, which holds 66,000 people, ranks 108th. Now imagine how many people 242 million is, about 1613 times more than the number of people in the world's largest football stadium, on a sunny day. That's a lot of people.

Considering that selling only 150 cookies per day would be CookieCabana's breakeven point (no profit-no loss), being able to reach even a tiny little part of the market covered by such social networks would be an awesome step for us.

In my dream I see the CookieCabana.com stopwatch as it has reached 003 Days 00 Hours 00 Minutes 00 Seconds. I am full of excitement... I don't know what will happen in three days' time when the countdown reaches zero... You know, it's sort of like children waiting for Christmas to arrive and open the presents that have been sitting under the tree for the past few days... you don't know if your presents are what you want and expect or... and you'd rather not think about the "or...". Waiting for Christmas is always so painfully exciting.

I just checked, the stopwatch shows 96 Days 17 Hours 19 Minutes 13 Seconds. Then again, a few seconds have already past as I type these words.

Anyway, a few days ago we visited a professional bakery equipment dealer we had visited a couple of months before. We wanted to order our ovens, but we found out that before we order ovens, we must find out if we have a 400 volt outlet where we want to put them.

Also, we wnated to find some sort of a solution for our (my) biggest problem, breaking chocolate blocks into samll enough pieces suitable for cookies. The people had a couple of suggestions, which we will try. You see, we have already selected chocolates from a very well known supplier. This company offers wonderful organic (bio) chocolates, and with great service. The only thing is they sell chocolates in 2.5 kg blocks, which must be broken into pieces before being used in the cookies. Have you ever tried to break up a 4 cm thick piece of chocolate? It's not so easy. I talked with their General Manager to see if they would make our chocolates thinner. He said they would, for orders of minimum 1 ton. At this point, that's a little too much for us. However if we don't find an easier solution , I have designed a tool for this, which we will be discussing with a Werkzeugbau specialist (a toolmaker, a German toolmaker at that) right after the holidays.

So far, for our test batches, I have been breaking chocolates using a simple hand tool originally designed for chopping onions. It does a great job, and every few minutes I can break about 50 grams into small pieces. But, a block of chocolate is 2500 grams, which means 50 grams x 50 chop operations of about 2 minutes each. Oouu my wrist.

By the way, CookieCabana.com is now transferred to us and is connected. A few hours ago we accepted the transfer as complete and authorized escrow.com to pay the seller.

Happy Holidays... and ho ho ho (as Santa says in old movies).

Sometime ago we found a domain name that would complement cookie-cabana.com nicely, after some checking around I found the owner of the name and contacted her to see if she was interested to sell. She was, and she proposed a price of 2,500 US Dollars. A few emails later, we agreed on a price that was acceptable to both, and she set up a transaction through a site called escrow.com... I'd never heard of this company, but again the internet came to the rescue. I read through the website's material, as well as some reviews, and all seemed to be OK.

We used a Visa card to buy the name from its owner, paid the money through escrow.com, and asked Benjamin to start the transfer procedure. The seller of the name is, for all I know, a lady from Bronx, New York. Through our few emails, she mentioned that she is a "professional namer" and brand manager. She offered her services for our marketing and brand management tasks ahead, and she asked how she could buy some of our cookies.

This is great... it's all fantasy, it's all virtual, we bought something that cannot be felt or touched, from someone thousands of kilometers away whom we've never seen and don't even know, paid a respectable amount of money usine a piece of plastic while sitting at a computer, sent an email to Benjamin to ask him to do the transfer, all within the scope of around 15 minutes time. Isn't it great?

Of course, the domain has not been connected to our service provider yet, but we expect this to happen within the next few days. It seems secure enough, although in a virtual sort of a way. It all feels like walking through "strwaberry fields"..."Nothin is real, and nothing to get hung about..."

I have always thought if I had not studied business and marketing in college, I would have gone into law. People, companies, countries, and even our planet Earth have their own rights. These "rights" which are generally the basis of modern law and most legal systems, have always interested me... but most of all I like business law. Business law is concerned with those behaviors that use up most of the time and effort of most people. I mean dealing with money, the things we buy or sell, and how we as consumers and/or producers are generally protected from flawed products and services. It's a world of laws, and I would imagine Germany is one of the more "legal minded" countries around.

A couple of days ago I met for the first time the lawyer who is taking care of legal matters for us, we had always been in contact by phone and email before... he was recommended to us by a highly reputable attorney, so we never felt the need for a face to face meeting before giving him our work. Nice man... relaxed, but obviously knowledgeable; straight forward, but smiling. All in all, I think we made the right decision to outsource our legal matters to this gentleman. Cookie Cabana is now a protected name in Europe, since our application has been filed and accepted, and this application takes precedence over any future requests for this name. We also talked about a few other legal points, especially liability insurance.

Do you remember the case of the man who sued McDonald's because their coffee was too hot? In our case, of course "Cabana" cookie bases will always be freshly made from the most wholesome bio (organic) ingredients, and we will deliver them "cool to the touch", but you never know... as Cat Stevens used to sing, "Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world".