third time's a charm

wow. i can't believe it's been almost two months since my last blogpost. for you six regulars, thanks for coming back to check in (feedreaders help, doubtless).

lots of stuff happening these days, though summer is generally a slower time business-wise, especially in these 100+ F days. in love with coffee as i am, it is always funnily difficult for me to understand why people don't want to drink hot coffee when it's still 89F at 9:30pm. go figure.

anyway, slow times or not, we're still here, plugging away, slugging away, doing lots of cupping, tweaking Big Brown, trying lots of exciting samples for the fall, setting up new wholesale clients and generally taking advantage of the relative downtime to plan for cooler weather when things will grow mad and fast toward the end of the year.

on a huge and hugely personal note, my lovely wife and i are expecting our third child. estimated time of arrival: 21 January 2009. we are both stoked, naturally. friends ask us whether we'll try to learn the gender before the baby's born (no...why spoil one of life's only true surprises?), whether we are hoping for one gender over another (no...we only pray for a healthy baby with five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot, and so forth) and how we think this will change our lives (who knows but God? but it WILL change, for sure!)

as i mentioned, we are ecstatic, though mom is still feeling a touch of nausea even here into the second trimester. but she looks great--she always has looked great during pregnancy--and is busy reading all about midwifery and homebirthing.

don't want to dominate this coffee blog with all the personal info. i promise i will get back to blogging coffee stuff very soon. i have been ruminating on some issues i'd like to share.

until then, stay cool.