Category Archives: Pets

modern pet shop

Posted on 26 July, 2010 by Justin Fox


WIP: modern pet shop logo.

For a good part of last year (6 months+) I was working on a business plan for opening a bike shop in the city. Fortunately it’s going to happen but unfortunately I’m not going to be a part of it. The situation is a little bitter sweet but I’m happy it’s going ahead and I learnt a lot through writing the business plan (something I’ve never done in depth before).

My sister has been pretty keen to start a family business of sorts for some time now and a few months ago we all went to a huge China trade fair in search for “something” which we could possibly import and sell. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything great (filling up a 20ft container with products that you’re not confident will sell is a pretty scary gamble!) so we put everything on ice for a while until recently.

For the past few months we’ve been talking about selling modern pet goods and slowly but surely our new business venture is shaping up. We’ve started work on an identity (see above logo symbol and logotype) and we’ve also developed this little blurb:

At modern pet shop we stock select items to satisfy many a pampered pet from a range of edgy, well-designed accessories, ranging from hand-stitched leather collars and leads, to wooden feeding bowls and organic treats.

Pampered pets never had it so good!

Legalities have been sorted and it’s full steam ahead. Yes there’s going to be some gambling involved (definitely not something I’m great at) and yes we’re bracing ourselves for potentially tense times, especially that family is involved but I’m feeling pretty positive about it all. More updates as they come!

EDIT: On a (very) related note this just came in the mail today from the USA:


Sleepypod.

Christina spotted this on the internet and had to have one. It’s a cat carrier which doubles up as a bed. It’s even got an in-built electric blanket! It’s very well made and the Apple like packaging was pretty impressive too. Very much in line with the kind of stuff we’d love to sell on the shop.

Posted in Design, Pets | 4 Comments

Anthias

Posted on 25 July, 2010 by Justin Fox


My new anthias which have added a lot more movement and colour to my tank.

My blue chromis have finally picked each other off and there’s only one guy left (there were 4 of them initially) so today Christina and I dropped into Kims in Ashfield in search for some schooling fish to add to the tank.

Schooling fish tend to be quite dumb and not afraid of people walking up to the tank, this helps the more intelligent and sometimes jumpy fish to calm down (my yellow and blue tangs tend to bolt for cover when I near the tank).

We spotted these beautiful Anthias. They school, they’re hardy and they’re placid too. The males and pink and females are orange but they can change sex too (and thus change colours). Pretty interesting huh? We bought 5 of them and we also got a whole lotta morphs too (Kim looked after us with a nice discount as well).

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Catastrophe!

Posted on 18 July, 2010 by Justin Fox

Tonight we headed over to Jamie and Richie’s place for dinner (always yum yum!) and they had a lot of hand-me-down goodies to give us!


!


You’d think that we were having kids?!


Going over was also a great excuse to play with naughty Jasper.


And Layla…


… who has her own home brew!

Our kitten will be ready to pick up on the 7th next month and Christina’s been going cat crazy lately (she’s doing LOTS of internet research!). We’ve got a pretty big list of names, on that list “Ponyo” & “Ebi” stood out but we’re pretty set on naming her “Mia”. :)

Posted in Pets | 1 Comment

Downs and Ups

Posted on 13 July, 2010 by Justin Fox

Yesterday I somehow managed to get through every single email that I had missed whilst in China. I didn’t reply to them all but I’ve read the lot and I’ve added a LOT of things to do in my calendar for the week. I had a few glasses of red last night too and was deep in sleep when the phone rang at 8.50AM. We haven’t got an answering machine and this caller was persistent.

During our overseas trip Christina’s Mum gave us a wake-up call every single morning so I assumed it was her. Christina got up and it turns out it was for me (oops). It was Daniel from Azzurri bikes. Him and George (the big boss from Taiwan) were in Sydney to launch their 2011 range. They had a display for dealers set-up at the airport and they invited me down to check it out.

I spent the morning and early afternoon working on more emails (and China blog updates in between) but late afternoon I headed out to check out the bikes:


The full 2010 range on display.


Killer fixie which has won a World Championship race, thus it’s allowed to wear the world cup stripes.


Hot tri bike.


A while back I designed the entire range of clothing for Azzurri and they had it all there, in the flesh which was awesome to see.


Daniel and George then pointed me over to this beastie which is all mine as a token of thanks for designing their range of clothing! I’ll be sure to post up better photos and a ride report too ASAP. Nice to know I’m the first in the country to own one!

You can view more images from the 2011 showing on Bikes Move Us. Visit: http://www.bikesmoveus.com.au/showthread.php?t=3435

OK now onto some BAD news. On the way back home from the show (with my new bike in the boot!) we dropped in to McDonalds as both Christina and I were starving (we missed lunch). On the way into the drive-through I heard that sound that fucks my world up. Yup… I guttered a rim.


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!! I posted the news on Facebook and Pakula left a reply which nails it: “Oh noes. Worst feeling ever.”. Yup I know there are people dying but right now I can’t think about anything else. I’m definitely going to lose sleep over this tonight.

I didn’t have too much time to feel sorry for myself though. My sister Jamie and Richie came over and we were off to Riverwood to check out a litter of baby Russian Blue’s. Christina and I have a Doberman on order, but before we wanted a dog we wanted a Russian Blue and somehow, all of a sudden, Christina really wanted one (again) so she’d called around and found one for sale.

I’ve been to a few cat shows and pet breeders and it’s definitely another world out there (to say the least). I swear you could do a doco on pet breeders and their homes. They’re mostly messy, awards pinned on every free bit of space, the sharp smell of cat urine and freaky cat people. But this was altogether a different experience. We were greeted by a cool guy who held his Boxer back (hey cat and dog owners. Animal lovers!) and we walked into a super clean apartment and were greeted by mamma Russian Blue (Misha), her babies were playing all over their couch.

It turns out that they were a young couple who had a female Russian Blue, hired a male stud to get her pregnant and with guidance from a vet they brought up a litter of 3. 2 of them had been sold (a boy and a girl) and we were checking out the last girl for sale:


OMFG.


Yup… how can you resist?


Half an hour later we had put a deposit down. She’s ours in 3 weeks!

Apparently the Russian Blue is much less of an allergen source than other breeds of cat and amazingly Christina (who is super allergic to cats) didn’t at all have any allergic reactions from playing with all 4 cats (so it must be true?!). For a good part of an hour I had forgotten my guttered rim but alas, as I write this I’m now again feeling shit about it. I’ll have to get it fixed or I’ll endlessly have to have a good gawk at the damage every single time I’m near the car.

PS: I’ve taken all the above pics with my new camera! SLR? Yah I finally did it… kinda?! More on the new toy soon :)

Posted in Bike, Pets | 2 Comments