McLeod Residence Blog

To an extraordinary 2006!

In January, we Rode the Duck(tm).

In February, I threw a party for my ex-wife, and went on my first official date with Maggie.

In March, I collaborated with Kharis and Rick on Yamabushi, and went to Mexico with Lele.

In April, I purged my possessions.

In May, we threw a party for my 30th birthday.

In June, I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat.

In July, I helped Maggie with her cat.

In August, we threw a Rock Paper Scissors tournament in San Francisco, went on a 5-day kayaking trip, participated in a Dream Interpretation Panel, and went to Foo Camp.

In September, I changed my name to Buster Butterfield McLeod.

In October, I did the Landmark Forum and started a new company/cult/community/art gallery/lounge with Lele called McLeod Residence.

In November, I ran a half-marathon.

In December, we prepared McLeod Residence for its grand opening in January, and learned how to shoot a gun. And so many other things in between.

*****

I think, this year, everything changed and came into focus for me.  I'm starting to see the magic in life... how everything works and how everything should be.  Having mottoes helped me build on ideas.  Higher highs and lower lows.  Go for broke.  Create extraordinary problems.  Be in it to win it.  No more dilly-dallying.  Double down.  Accept all offers.  Be the thing.  And, just last night, I realized with Lele and Maggie's help, that making something and forcing something aren't the same things.  You force things to happen by wanting things.  You make things happen by being the thing.  There is no more need to want things, just be things.  Be your best self.  Everything is an end in itself.  If the process of getting something or becoming something isn't the reward that you're looking for, you're never going to get it.  Because there isn't anything else.  You can't force an idea to come any more than you can force a relationship to work.  Ideas come and relationships work when you relax and just be them in the best sense.

It was a year of big changes and realizations.  2007 is going to be about manifesting these ideas and mottoes into a big reality... into my relationships, into the Robot Co-op, into McLeod Residence, and into myself.  To make progress on my impossible mission, to blend life, work, play, and love into a lifestyle that is creative, always changing, and extraordinary. 

It's all so simple.  Figure out what you're striving for.  See what's holding you back.  Prove to yourself that you're in it to win it by making irreversible steps towards your goals.  Think constantly about your ideal scene.  Discover the reward that is an end in itself.  The great thing about ends in themselves is that they exist right now.  There is no journey.  It's all mental.  We are our own worst enemies.  Our own genius nemesis.  Man versus himself.  But, luckily, you're equally matched.  You can do it.

This next week is perfectly timed for madness and explosions.  Friends from all over are arriving from SF (Ali, Jess, Aubs, Cameron, Buzz), NYC (Harry, Alice, Sean, LBJ, Kharis, Kevin, Kellianne), Portland (Rachel, Bjorn, others), many others I'm forgetting or don't know about yet, not to mention all of our Seattle friends.  All for NYE.  All for the new life of McLeod, which is completely invented out of nothing!  It's a blank slate for our own aesthetic and our own lives. 

If you're short on New Year's resolutions, Lele's from last year is difficult to beat: do something that surprises, inspires, and terrifies you.  And when you do that, do it again. Here are my 2007 resolutions so far:

1. do something that surprises, inspires, and terrifies me                  
2. open a bar/art gallery with friends                  
3. revive Office Hours as something new                  
4. become a certified Toastmaster                  

McLeod Diary: the basics

It's been a little over a month since we signed the lease on our space.  What a crazy month.  I want to document what's going on publicly just because I know that if I was watching from the outside I'd be curious about all of the various steps that were required to get this going.  I am coming to believe that the uncertainty of this process is the most intimidating barrier that blocks most people from doing something crazy like opening a new business.  But, then again, there are some personality types that thrive on the uncertain and swirling madness that working with the city, the bank, the architect, the friends, the family, the contractors, and insurance agent all at once provides.   Those people should probably just start their business rather than read this blog.  For the rest of you slackers, here's what we've been up to...

City permits.  Our space is zoned for commercial, and therefore can be opened as a restaurant, bar, or pretty much any other kind of retail space.  Potentially.  However, in order to get permission officially, you need to apply for a permit from the city.  In Seattle, you do this here.  We got stuck because we need a site plan of the space in order to apply... so we hired an architect friend to make some plans for us.  Once he submits them, he gets us a project number, and we can use that to apply for a permit number.  And THEN we can get inspections from fire, health, ADA, and the liquor control board.  So far, we've learned that we won't have to do any major structural modifications to the space because it's small and we're not doing a lot of work on it.  The catch-22 is that if you begin to invest a lot into tenant improvements on the building then you will become responsible for updating it to code as well.

Liquor license.  It costs $2,000 to apply for a restaurant liquor license (beer, wine, and spirits).  In addition, you need to send them all kinds of other information like the last 10 years of your employment record, the last 10 years of addresses you've lived at, and forms for criminal records.  The actual code requirements for getting the license are pretty easy... having rails separating 21+ areas from non-21+ areas, putting up a couple stickers and signs (alcohol + pregnancy = bad), having some food on the menu for a certain number of hours per day, and keeping entrances to the liquor area a certain size (not wider than 10 ft).  The difficulty is simply that you also need to comply with the food and health codes that the city.  My contact at the Liquor Control Board has been really helpful so far.

Changing the space.  We're doing a number of minor improvements to the space to make it fit our vision.  For example, making it so the bathroom floors don't slope down.  :)  Also, painting/wallpapering walls, building a desk and a bar, adding track lighting to the gallery rooms and chandeliers to other rooms.   We have  a lot to do here, lots of small things, but we're also trying to keep a lot about the space as it is.  We're not tearing down any walls, and will probably keep most of the doors and windows.  They give it the residence-feel that's a big part of the reason we chose the place to begin with.

Budget.  We created a month-by-month budget for the next 14 months, and yearly budget projections for the next 5 years.  We're creating worst case scenarios and best case scenarios, raising money from a few friends and family members, while also having backup lines of credit in case we need it.  We know exactly how long we'll last if we never make a dime.  We know when we'll break even if things go according to plan.  Of course, all of this is changing day-to-day, and we don't know how things will actually turn out.  The main goal of planning this way is so that we don't get surprised by math that should have been obvious from the start.

These are the basics that have been occupying our day-to-day activities as we start building this up.  Next I'll talk about different parts of our planning process... ideas for the technology, art, and collaboration pieces of McLeod.  In the end, we're building this for the big ideas, but first we need to build the foundation.