It is a rainy and windy Wednesday night out here at my Island Outpost! A good night to stay in and write my first blog. Since this is my first posting I will fill in some blanks here about myself. My wife and I are the owners of 234 Water, a Gift shop & Gallery here on the vacation resort-Block Island. Summers here can be extremely busy and crazy with upwards of 10,000 tourists on any given day. Quite a difference from the 900 or so here right now! Actually, the unofficial count of Island residents is performed on Block Island on Groundhog Day. Everyone is counted regardless of residency which works statistically to counter those who have left for warmer climes in winter. That's right, the Island is more concerned about how many other people are here than whether winter will be ending soon. Maybe because we already know that winter is going nowhere! And neither are we! The unofficial headquarters is a local bar called the Albion. "Official" counters make a tally- besides counting those in the bar(which is substantial) making phone calls to homes, by quizzing each other, looking for lights on in homes, tracks on distant driveways and word of mouth. This year the count was 992, up 21 from last year. Amazing to most is the fact that this count is extremely accurate. In 2000 the census estimated 1010 souls and The Groundhog Day census came in at 969. Not bad, huh?
Well, the webstore that I have been working on for the last month or so is finally done and up and running. I have sent email blasts and now sit here and wait for the orders to come flying in!!!! Winters on Block Island are an extremely quiet time and if you don't have something to keep you busy you could easily turn into Rip Van Winkle and sleep the winter away! The decision to finally tackle the ecommerce site has kept me busy, which is a good thing, because I feel the winter flying by. Summer will be here soon, I hope!
I will be making blog entries every week or so, hopefully. There are a lot of interesting things that happen out here that those who are here only during summer might find interesting. Check in often as I post and also check out the photos I will continually add to. Get a view of Island life in the off season and checkin on how my entry in to ecommerce is going. Oh, and if you like the interesting items in our store you will get a preview of those new interesting items we have found this winter while shopping for 234 Water. See you soon!
