Griever/Detailed Timeline
Staddon vs. Griever: Detailed Timeline
Timeline
When | Description |
1994? 1995? | Nick starts work with Dan Dudley on recording studio at 2895 Danielsville Rd. (Dan and others had built a stage in the back yard while the previous tenant was still there), eventually to be called Red House (because of the house's exterior color). No paperwork is filed. Nick provides some equipment (much of which was purchased earlier at Dan's recommendation – total about $2000 – when they were in a band together) and purchases additional equipment on Dan's recommendation, including a large Quantum mixing board (Nick initially paid for half and later had to buy Dan's half from him or lose the board) and a baby grand piano, total Dan-recommended purchases about $4000. Dan leaves angrily after several months of carpentry, most of which is unfinished in one way or another. Nick tries to make a go of the recording studio even though preparations are not complete and equipment is not all working quite right. I had occasional paying clients and wasn’t losing money heavily, but it just wasn’t enough. I was always having to apologize to clients for equipment problems. I needed more income from somewhere. I would have kept going with it anyway if Chris Cox hadn’t come along and talked me into what happened next. |
1995.08.14 (from Sec. Of State) | Cox-Staddon Enterprises, Inc., d.b.a. Red House Media and Olymprop, is incorporated. Chris Cox, President; Nick Staddon, VP, Livia Wade, Treasurer. The company operates from the Red House location. Nick pays for incorporation and other setup expenses using credit cards. I continued to work on the recording studio when time permitted. |
1995.09.13 | Nick finishes refinishing the floor of the Red House control room (heart-pine flooring exposed and coated with polyurethane) |
1995.10. | Red House sets up web sites for several local musicians and begins offering their CDs for sale through The Red House Store (at http://redhouse.com/store), as well as licensed merchandise commemorating the Athens (GA) part of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Also, Olymprop goes online (http://redhouse.com/olym/prop) – web site attempting to market rental housing for Olympics visitors, in contract with a local realtor. |
1995.11.19 | First mention of “Florida family”, which is apparently Lynne and Bubba. (12/4 “$50 from Fla folks (Lynn & Bubba)”) Apparently Lynne and Bubba have now arrived at 2895 Danielsville Rd. and begun staying in the “Tipi Village” which was then still operating in the back yard, relic of the previous tenant and his extensive social network. (Not sure what brought them to the Village, but I’ve assumed they heard of it through the grapevine.) They are paying $50/month to help with expenses incurred by their stay (standard Tipi Village policy at that point). Their daughter Jess and her husband Frank are also staying there and paying $50/month (earliest mention: 12/4) |
1995.11.30 | From RH log: “Nick foolishly loaned Chris another $35.00” -- evidently Nick is now tired of dealing with Chris. |
1996.02.16 | Earliest evidence of orders being received at The Red House Store. |
mid/late 1996 | 1996 Olympics end; no Olymprop houses have rented. Chris’s interest in Red House’s other operations seems to drift, and he becomes increasingly problematic. |
(1995? 1996?) | Nick is doing sporadic recording studio gigs, many paying, through 1996 and (early?) 1997. New web clients during this time: Autonomous Records, WPUP, J.J. Reneaux. Nick goes moves to athensnet.com (Merph Ellis) for web hosting. |
1996.04.17 | Work for “Day Trip” (money-making music fest organized by Nick and Chris, funded by Nick's already-overburdened credit cards) is apparently well underway; L&B's daughter Cimmeria helps to sell tickets downtown. |
1996.04.29 | Day Trip has apparently concluded at this point (should be able to find exact dates on poster, when I find that). |
| Lynne offers to help keep things in the Tipi Village under control – mainly litter control and use of facilities. Some clean-up efforts were organized at various times but not documented. |
1996.05.03 | Chris abruptly moves out from the house shared with his girlfriend and moves his dilapidated RV to the woods behind 2895 (in the back of the “Tipi Village”, see later entries). |
1996.05.13 | Chris owes Nick money, and also owes money to his ex-girlfriend Nancy; Nick tries to help Nancy by setting up an accounting. Nick agrees that she needs her smaller amount back more urgently than Nick needs his larger amount back, due to circumstances |
1996.05.15 | Nick sets down terms for Chris's continuing involvement in Red House. These include no drinking, no sleeping around, regular cash payments on his debts to RH and Nancy, no being in RH without Nick there, and his name off the bank accounts. |
1996.06. | Evidence of Nick's continuing irritation with Chris – lack of follow-through etc. |
1996.07.10 | Nick is still trying to square things with Nancy. |
1996.07.29 | Nick sets up redhouse.com email account for Bubba to use. |
1996.08.04 | Red House registers & pays for vbz.net domain, which goes largely unused at first |
1996.12. | Lynne Griever assists (Bubba in attendance but not participating) with negotiations between Nick & Chris for complete termination of Chris’s involvement with Red House/CSE. A small but annoying error is made, requiring follow-up work and apologies to a potential business contact. (Chris is gone by 12/6.) Chris eventually donates RV to the RDA. In retrospect I don’t think Lynne’s assistance was actually helpful. |
| Lynne and Bubba begin storing disused vehicles at 2895 Danielsville Rd., starting with a small covered trailer and eventually escalating over the next few years to include 2 schoolbuses, a wrecked Camaro, a disused two-door sedan, Chris Cox’s motor home which he later donated to the RDA (sometime after 1/28/98), and a covered pickup truck donated to the RDA by another departing village resident. (The pickup truck was sold; the other vehicles were all eventually – after much fuss – moved to the Grievers’ residence at Hull Road, mostly after Nick moved out of 2895 Danielsville Rd.) |
1996oct26-27 | Shanti Fest – charitable music festival organized by Bubba, Lynne, Nick, and others in the back yard of 2895. Nick performs with the Grievers and makes audio recordings of most of the festival. (Many other local artists perform. The festival is a musical success, but attendance is small and profits were zero-ish.) Bubba reportedly does extensive groundswork to help make the fest a success, and becomes somewhat ill (from exhaustion) for several days as a result. |
| Lynne & Bubba describe to Nick their ideas for a network of organizations to assist the underprivileged (towards which end they plan to start their own nonprofit, to be called The ReDistribution Alternative), and offer to help with Red House work in exchange for Nick’s help with the computer side of their operations. Nick states that trading certain onerous tasks (most notably phone calls and paperwork) for computer work would be agreeable. Nick assigns Bubba office space, a computer, and a key to the red house (2895). |
1997.02.17 | Nick helps put together a web site for the RDA, and Red House hosts it (http://redhouse.com/rda) |
1997.03.25 | Jesssica Whitehill (Lynne's 3rd daughter) gives birth to Gabriel Dembe' Whitehill. |
.1997.04.12 - 1997.05.06 | In the absence of paying employment, Nick puts in regular hours working on Mubbie's rental properties. |
1997.05.23 | Nick and Livia file for bankruptcy in order to escape some $40k of credit card debt which began accumulating in August 1991, shortly before the move to Georgia. The “Tipi Village” is apparently still open for all comers at this time (see email in Bubba's acct) |
1997.06.20 (from Sec. Of State website) | Lynne and Bubba incorporate The ReDistribution Alternative, Inc. (“RDA”) Willard Griever, President, operating address is 2895 Danielsville Rd. (same as Cox-Staddon) |
1997.07.10 | Bankruptcy court date has happened by now. Approval to be 3-6 weeks later. Hackers broke into at least one server at AthensNet, and redhouse.com was affected. Apparently the store is offline at this point because of the resulting server configuration changes. |
1997.07.16 | The stage in the Red House back yard has, by this time, fallen down, and Nick cannot get permission from the landowners to hold further concerts. |
1997.08.14 | Red House Store is apparently still offline; Nick is hoping to get it online by the end of August. |
1997.09.13 | AthensNet.com goes under; redhouse.com goes down briefly, but Nick is able to find hosting again fairly quickly. Vbz.net takes a little longer, so The Red House Store (then at vbz.net/store) is still offline when the following events happen. Nick is offered programming work in Wisconsin, on contract, at a high rate of pay. Being desperately short of money for business, family, and personal projects, and with Livia’s full support, Nick accepts the job and heads off to Wisconsin. Lynne and Bubba agree to “mind the store” while Nick is out – not that there’s a whole lot to do, since business is slow, but the existing clients do have needs which pop up from time to time and there are one or two issues being resolved which Nick will not be able to “stay on top of” while out of the office. I continued to stay on top of the technical work while out of the office, but I had been hoping Lynne or Bubba could cover most of the human-contact stuff I really hate doing. They repeatedly fell down on this, though, to my great frustration, as expressed in at least one email. |
| Livia buys a beat-up old Datsun ($900), Nick having taken the family Nissan to Wisconsin. |
| I remember Lynne approaching me, while I was still in Athens, with a request from Bubba to get my permission to pursue some additional lines of merchandise for the store. I remember thinking this an odd request, since it’s not clear why Bubba needed permission to gather information, but I said “sure”. In later conversations, it turns out there was a miscommunication; apparently Bubba wanted a promise that I would put his items in the store once he had them ready, even though he had not given me a reasonably specific list or description of them. |
1997.10.28 | Nick returns to Wisconsin after visiting GA for a few days (?) to pick up some things and tidy up a few loose ends. (It may have been during this visit that Lynne approached me as above.) |
1997.10.01 ~ | Nick arrives in Wisconsin.Nick continues handling web site maintenance and store orders while there (including credit card processing... I can't remember if Bubba handled shipping or if I decided to bring all the stock up with me, since it was mostly CDs/tapes and didn't take much room). |
1997.11.? (early Nov.) | Nick is able to get hosting for vbz.net, but further work is needed to get the store back online. |
1997.11.06 | Bubba leaves Athens for a trip to Gatlinburg. Lynne may be able to assist Nick with any “minding the store” tasks he needs, though it's not clear how much she can do. |
1997.11.26 | Bubba returns; gets back in touch with Nick on 12/1. |
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Early-mid 1998? | Lynne asks Nick for permission (via phone?) to temporarily set up a “food pantry” (free food distribution site for the needy) at 2895 Danielsville Rd. Lynne agrees that the pantry should be gone in about a month and certainly by the time Nick returns from Wisconsin. |
1998.02.11 | Bubba has arranged to receive extensive (and expensive) chiropractic care from Five Points Chiropractic in exchange for a web site which he will set up and which Nick will host at vbz.net. The partially-completed site (with which Nick assisted in the layout and image processing) has been online for some time by this date. Bubba sends Nick a list of suppliers he would like to add to the store (but not any details on the actual items or quantities involved), including The Mountain. So as yet the Red House Store is still entirely indy music and a few related products. |
1998.03.15
| Nick is able to get the store working again (while trying to keep up with maintenance for the Autonomous Records web site and of course holding down a full-time-plus job). |
1998.03.27 | Nick experiences trouble with Autonomous leaving RH invoices unpaid, complicated by financial problems on the Red House side of things. L&B are no help in resolving the issues. |
1998.04.01 | Another artist, J.J. Reneaux, announces that she is unhappy with the long hiatus and will be taking her business elsewhere shortly. Lynne agrees to call J.J. and discuss the situation; Nick explains the situation in great detail from his POV, but there are no emails from Lynne indicating that she actually made the call. I also remember feeling like this had been left very much unresolved, although Lynne may have told me verbally (phone) that she called and given me all the details – which of course I would not have remembered since they were not written down, and at that time it probably would not have occurred to me to take extensive notes or email her “here's how I understood what you said on the phone”. |
1998.04.15 | Bubba sends Nick a list of a few dozen Mountain shirts to add to the store. |
1998.04.22 | Nick emails Bubba “Hey, if you're planning to not check your email for a week, maybe you could give me a heads-up first???” |
1998.04.24 | Nick emails L&B “I haven't heard from you in a very long time despite repeated inquiries. I'm thinking that this isn't working. Comments?” |
1998.04.25 | Bubba replies that he was working and thought Nick would appreciate a break from Bubba's silly emails. He also says he didn't receive anything to which he didn't reply, and apologizes for the inconvenience. Nick responds with a list of what he emailed to which there was no response. Nick also sends a situation update based on what he has heard from Livia, including the fact that Lynne has tried several times to reach JJ without success, and has left messages on JJ's answering machine. |
1998.04.29 | Nick asks Bubba who will be shipping the items on the Mountain list he sent – Mountain or Red House. The items are online but have not been tested for ordering glitches. |
1998.05.02 | Minor layout changes to the store are in progress during this time; several emails back & forth. |
1998.05.04 | Nick composes a formal plan to Pierce (employer in Wisconsin) for doing much of their programming work in Georgia instead of Wisconsin. Nick emails the plan to Lynne for critiquing before sending it to Pierce. Bubba asks Nick to add Alexander Flores to list of artists at the store. Nick says he needs more information before that will be possible. Store is still at vbz.net/store. |
1998.05.07 | Nick is extremely frustrated with Bubba and tells him “If you haven't had time to do it, it's more important to me that I know this than it is that you feel guilty about it” and “You have a bad habit of picking one of the questions I ask and only answering that question.” |
1998.05.11 | Nick to Lynne, regarding some order information she gave Nick on the phone: “If you told me on the phone, you need to always follow up with email because then I have a record of it.” Nick subsequently found where he had written the information down, but re-emphasized that email would have been better. |
1998.05.12 | Nick mentions to Bubba “I've mentioned to various people [at Pierce] that I'm currently planning my nervous breakdown for August, if I can hold out that long.” |
1998.05.19 | At Lynne's request, Nick updates the Mad Housers page within RDA's web site. Nick sends Bubba a rather urgent request about a customer order (“Can you attempt to contact Autonomous and find out what's going on?”). |
1998.05.26 | Bubba sends Nick information about a used inkjet printer Bubba is interested in having Nick purchase for use at RH. |
1998.05.28 | Nick asks Bubba if he needs a daily reminder to deal with the issue emailed on 5/19. |
1998.05.29 | Nick sends Bubba “no response #1” including a to-do list, in very irritated tones, with much use of the word “urgent”. |
1998.06.01 | Nick sends Bubba “no response #2” to the 5/29 email, with updates. |
1998.06.02 | Nick sends Bubba “no response #3” to the 5/29 email, with an update: “ If I don't hear from them in a week, I'll be refunding the money and pulling [Autonomous's] stuff out of the catalog.” |
1998.06.03 | Bubba sends nick a reply, saying he thought the issues had been dealt with via IM “last night”. The rest of the message seems strangely off-target, although it is apparently responding to the issues remaining as of “no response #3”. |
1998.06.04 | Nick responds and sends Bubba an updated list of priorities. |
1998.06.11 | Bubba emails Nick some details about L&B's physical reorganization plans, including “so things should be back to as you remember them by time you get here.” -- which I think means that they were intending to have the food pantry gone from RH by the time of my next trip to Athens. Nick mentions plans to move the small storage shed from the Brown House to RH. Nick receives a mail package sent by L/B, and notes that there were two overdue internet access bills (said internet access being used only by L&B at that time) and an envelope marked on the envelope that it needed to be returned by 5/13. Nick is very upset about this and says so. |
1998.07.25 | Nick visits Georgia to retrieve some items and take care of miscellaneous business. Works for Pierce 7/28, 7/29, 8/3-8/14 |
1998.08. | Earliest documented borrowing by the Grievers - $300 for an undocumented purpose. |
1998.08.15 Sa | Probable date of drive back to Wisconsin (was written down as 9/15, but that can't be.) |
1998.08.17 | Nick is back in Wisconsin |
1998.08.26 | Nick plans another GA trip. |
1998.08.29 | Nick drives down to GA At this point, the food pantry is still taking up most of the space in the living room; Bubba’s office in the recording control room has become a bedroom. The room is unusable for recording work, and the living room is unusable as performance space. Under pressure from Lynne and Bubba to live up to my “agreement” to put Bubba’s new items in the store, I hastily did an extensive redesign of the store so it could accommodate the items he wanted to add, which pretty much overwhelmed the content (independent music) I had originally put there. This took significant time away from the work I was supposed to be doing for my employer and may have harmed my credibility with said employer – although the hourly log still shows me doing mostly 8+ hours per day. Perhaps I felt under pressure to work 10 hour days?RH log book shows a lot of work on vbz.net during 9/21-10/8 Nick buys Livia a used Honda to replace the beat-up Datsun. The Grievers begin borrowing the Datsun soon after this. |
1998.09.24 | Nick drives back to WI |
1998.10.06 | Signs of (start of?) conflict with Don Verhoff of Pierce |
1998.10.19 | Probable last day of Pierce contract (work log has start time but no end time; progress log also ends on this day). A couple of days later, Nick returns to Athens. Nick gets a similar contract with a local company (Carrier Transicold) and begins working there almost immediately. Computers at Red House become networked (Nick and/or CSI pays for networking equipment, and Nick runs network cables.) |
1998.11.08 | Nick performs with the Grievers at Shanti Fest 2, held on private property off Route 441 north of Athens. |
1998.12.03 | From log book: “When will the control room stop being a bedroom? When will pantry be gone from inside house?” Grievers are still using the recording studio control room (Bubba’s office) as a bedroom, and the pantry is still occupying most of the living room (there was probably an email about this on 12/9). The phrase “incredible mess” accurately describes the house, inside and out, at this point. |
Early 1999 | Nick’s contract with the Wisconsin company ends; Nick returns to Athens. Nick gets a similar contract with a local company (Carrier Transicold) and begins working there almost immediately. Computers at Red House become networked (Nick and/or CSI pays for networking equipment, and Nick runs network cables.) |
Late 1998 – early 1999 | Nick buys Livia an old beat-up pick-up truck ($1000) to use for hauling stuff to/from/around the property. Additional repairs are done to make the truck dependable, for another $1000 or so. |
1999.03.24 | Lynne and Bubba begin borrowing Livia’s pickup truck. Nick & Livia have to tell L&B quite explicitly (a) not to borrow it without asking, and (b) to return it the next day unless a different time has been agreed on. Equipment Livia leaves in the truck tends to be missing when the truck is returned. Livia investigates how to get L&B on the truck’s vehicle insurance, to avoid complications if they are in an accident while driving it. |
1999.03.29 | Cable Internet is installed at Red House (Nick/CSI pays for it). Ev, all workstations are able to access Internet through the network instead of having to dial up. |
1999 early April | Nick and Livia sell the Datsun to Lynne and Bubba for $300 (?) |
1999.04.15 | Bubba wrecks the Datsun with Lynne and their son Jody in the car. Lynne is in the hospital until 4/21. Jody's leg is broken and he is in a cast for many months. The Datsun is totalled. Not too long after this (date uncertain), Bubba is burned by gasoline while helping a friend repair their car at L&B's Hull Road house. He is in the hospital again for at least a day. |
1999.09. | Nick and Bubba set up web site for a nonprofit Lynne is working with, the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness. Nick/CSI fronts hosting costs ($15.95/mo), with the understanding that these will be covered once the site is approved. |
2000.01. | Nick starts trying to get a handle on the seemingly constant stream of Griever-associated people moving into and out of the “Village” area. (Some of them may not be Griever-associated, but Grievers are supposed to be in charge of clearing permissions for people who want to stay there overnight.) |
2000.06.06 | Nick is still doing maintenance on gceh.org website, without pay, and covering the cost of hosting until RDA is able to obtain funds. |
2000.06.18 | Email from Lynne mentioning a loan (amount unspecified) which Nick had apparently agreed to leave for her. |
2000.10.13 | RDA (or was it Nick?) registers madhousers.org on behalf of Frank Jeffers's nonprofit The Mad Housers. |
2000.10.30 | RDA registers redistribution.org; no hosting yet (or was it hosted somewhere else?) |
2000.11.02 | Lynne spends some time critiquing the redesign of vbz.net then underway |
2000.11.13 | Lynne wants to talk to Nick before he goes somewhere. |
2000.12. | Nick completes another major design revision of vbz.net, with some undocumented assistance from L&B. Bubba created almost all of the images then in use (backgrounds were original, and product images were processed from images provided by suppliers); he also did all the legwork of tracking down suppliers and obtaining images and catalogs from them. Nick did all the programming and HTML/layout work. |
2001.02 | GCEH is dissolved; Nick sets up redistribution.org on gceh.org's web hosting account. |
2001.02.19 | Nick asks Bubba (email) to please handle customer inquiries without waiting for Nick to ask first. |
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2001.02.23 | Nick asks Bubba to handle a specific customer email. |
2001.04.04 | Apparently Nick responded to one of Lynne's loan requests (or a promise to pay back a loan, perhaps) by asking if she could provide a post-dated check for the amount due. Lynne declines the offer. Bubba is working for Lofty Ideas at this point. Apparently Nick had left a copy of the spreadsheet showing RDA's then-debt to Nick/RH, but mentioned that the t-shirt sales percentage might affect the total. Lynne circuitously says they can't do anything about it right now, and agrees that it would be best to have the total with the sales percentage included. Lynne promises to pay the current batch of bills “around the 25th to the 27th of this month.“ |
2001.04.20? | Nick & Livia visit NC; Nick briefly visits Sandy for the first time. (earliest: 20th; latest: 23rd) Lynne emails Nick asking for a $200 loan. Lynne is working for GA Task Force. |
2001.04.26 | Evidence of Nick frustration with non-responsiveness from B. Nick is also helping Bubba with a web site project Bubba has taken on (CarCapsule), without any specificagreement about payment. Nick receives Bubba's response to customer, but it isn't at all clear whether Bubba responded to the customer as well, since Nick did not receive a copy of anything sent to the customer. |
2001.05.01 | Nick asks B about Lynne's “moving plan” -- not sure what this might refer to; had RH been broken into yet? |
2001.05.16 | Nick sends Lynne a reminder for $130.15 of phone bills which Nick had covered. |
2001.05.24 | Nick emails Lynne about an unexpected charge on Livia's SunTrust check card. Nick mentions that Lynne paid him for another charge on or around that date. Nick reminds Lynne that he needs a written list of everything Lynne uses the SunTrust card for (date, amount, and payee), whenever she uses it. |
2001.05.25 | Nick inquires about whether Lynne has paid back for several other charges on the SunTrust card, totalling $235. |
2001.05.26 | A mysterious charge shows up on Nick's personal check card; Nick asks Lynne if she did it. Lynne says she did but that she already told Nick about it and wrote him a check which should have covered it but didn't quite; Lynne also mentions some other transactions. |
2001.05.28? | Sandy and Charles visit Athens (“the Josh trip”); they camp out behind Red House and spend days in Livia's backyard. (Nick is still working days at Carrier.) |
2001.05.29 | Lynne mentions having written a $330 check to Nick but having decided not to leave it on Nick's keyboard because Charles was using Nick's computer. |
2001.06.10 | Nick asks Lynne (email) if it would be ok to haul off Frank & Jess's car, which was at that time parked behind the “Village” area. It had apparenly not been used for some time; the rear window had been replaced with a plastic sheet which had torn almost completely away, allowing rain to come into the back seat.. |
2001.06.10 | Lynne requests (email) to put off making a decision on that car as they are currently focussing on moving “the big bus” (probably the one which they parked in back of Red House, blocking Nick's office window view). Lynne suggests talking over the options, after which they would consider disposing of F&J's car if no other possibilities came up. |
2001.06.10 | Nick agrees to this (email) and suggests that he will have more time for discussion soon, probably in 2-3 weeks. |
2001.06.12 | Lynne requests to speak with Nick for maybe 10-15 minutes. Nick says “any time tonight” should be fine. |
2001.06.13 | Nick's job at Carrier ends. No new job being on the horizon, Nick decides to devote all his available energy to making vbz.net profitable. |
2001.06.15 | Sandy had planned to drive down with Mel; at the last minute Sandy finds herself panicking about it, so Nick instead drives up in the Benz and drives them all down to Athens in Sandy's minivan the next day. |
2001.06.16 | Lynne emails nick a Word document (odd, that) requesting a $200 loan in addition to $400 apparently already loaned, and requesting an extension on that $400 with a payback plan of $200 per paycheck, starting in 2 weeks, for the $600 total. Lynne apologizes for continual borrowing. |
2001.06.30 | Nick emails Lynne & Bubba about having left the thermostat turned way down low when Nick had been trying to save electricity by leaving it turned “off” except when desperately needed, due to the new need to save money. Lynne apologizes for accidentally leaving it on. |
2001.07.10 | Nick emails Lynne about mysterious BellSouth charge ($141.10, 6/22) on Nick's Sears Mastercard. Nick reminds Lynne about always writing down any charges she makes on any of Nick's cards. |
2001.07.11 | Lynne claims having discussed it with Nick verbally and having already paid him for it that same day. Lynne agrees that putting such things in email is a good idea. Nick replies that he can't find any record of having received or deposited the check, and wonders if maybe he gave it back to her as part of some exchange. (Lynne's justification for such an exchange at the time would have been that it would simplify things, presumably for Lynne, but obviously if such an exchange did take place it has had the effect of making it entirely unclear whether Lynne did in fact pay Nick back for the charge.) Lynne says she will have to check her notes and get back to Nick about it. |
2001.07.11 | Nick asks Bubba the whereabouts of Nick's auto-battery trickle charger, originally loaned to charge up the battery of the Big Bus so it could be moved (whereupon it got dripped on by some fluid or other), and last seen in Bubba's Big Black Truck. (Which means that Bubba has acquired the Big Black Truck by this time, and I believe the Big Bus had not yet been moved because that's where I first looked for the charger.) Bubba replies that he has needed to take it to work with him because of a malfunctioning charger. He implies he will return it on Friday. |
2001.07.11 | Lynne emails Nick a complicated list of transactions with explanations, all in a single paragraph, explaining what happened with the BellSouth charge and other items. Nick has set up a new computer (“Sweetums”). Sweetums is now the fastest computer in Red House. My recollection was that I told Lynne she should use Sweetums instead of borrowing Bubba's computer, which she was in the habit of doing and thereby preventing Bubba from doing Red House work. I planned to use Sweetums for myself when Lynne wasn't around and also to run data-processing tasks in the background when she was; Lynne's use of the Sweetums was generally not a major obstacle to this, although I did feel like I was doing her a major favor by providing her with a such a nice computer just so Bubba would be able to use the one I had provided for him. |
2001.07.16 | Nick and Anna go to visit Sandy in NC, “back Thursday afternoon”. Nick leaves rush order in Bubba's chair, with instructions and an email to Lynne mentioning the rush order and the NC visit itinerary. |
2001.07.18 | Nick emails Lynne & Bubba asking if the rush order went out on time because he hadn't heard anything, and also asking Bubba to handle another customer inquiry (attached). |
2001.07.19 | Nick & Anna return to GA. Nick forwards Bubba another customer inquiry, and asks “let me know when y'all are gonna be around”. |
2001.07.30 | Nick tries to straighten out housekeeping issues which have become a problem (e.g. the cloud of fruit-flies around some unemptied trash in the kitchen; supplies running out). “Am I now [in charge of housekeeping]? Or is someone else?” Nick also asks when would be a good time for the next “regular” meeting (as I recall, we had all – L,B, and me -- agreed that we needed to have a weekly meeting), and mentions planning to be out of town (in NC and DC with Anna & Livia) approximately 8/2-8/11. |
2001.07.31 | Lynne agrees that regular meetings are a good idea. Lynne confesses to the housekeeping oversights but suggests that the piles of boxes (shipping and/or stock -related, I believe – probably the boxes in the middle of the living room, which tended to crowd around the kitchen door at times) are making it difficult to keep on top of the housekeeping. Lynne also mentions that they will be busy with lofts 8/9-8/14 and presumably will not be over at RH much, nor able to stay on top of anything RH-related, during this time. |
2001.08.01 | Nick mentions a delay in travel plans; he & family will be leaving Sunday morning. Lynne describes her various efforts to deal with the trash situation. |
2001.08.02 | Nick asks L&B about (1) plans for the J&J Flea Market web site (domain renewal came due), (2) plans to pay for hosting for redistribution.org. Mentions plan to get dedicated server. |
2001.08.06 | Nick apologizes for interrupting possible pre-loft activities but asks if Bubba had been able to find out information needed to fill a very large order (Flores) over which he had been enthusiastic when originally queried. |
2001.08.07 | Having heard nothing back from Bubba, Nick attempts to contact Flores Art by email. |
2001.08.08 | Nick asks Bubba or Lynne to please try and find out the status of a different order. (From what I remember, Bubba had made some arrangements about it and I didn't have enough information to answer the question myself.) |
2001.08.09 | Lynne replies, suggesting that Nick check his laptop for the missing information, although she says Bubba will also investigate... Nick is frustrated by the response. |
2001.08.28 | “Lynne's” hard drive dies. (Was this the one on Waldorf, or Bubba's computer which Lynne co-opted, or Sweetums? Or maybe even Statler before Statler got cannibalized to fix Waldorf? Not sure.) |
2001.10.05 | Nick asks Bubba/Lynne about the nature of the hosting account they have apparently set up on Affinity (same host as redhouse.com), and reminds everyone about the redistribution.org hosting charges. |
2001.10.10 | Nick discovers the deadbolt on the back door has been left open overnight. (Lynne responds: “Good catch... sorry.”) Nick calls “HLNA Platinum”, something which Lynne apparently initiated but had not intended to be a repeating charge, to have them cancel charges on the Sears Mastercard. $23.85 on 9/11 cannot be refunded but HLNA agrees to refund the other charge(s). |
2001.10.?? | Nick assumes musical production duties to finish off the RDA’s Benefit CD project, begun soon after 9/11. Nick is verbally promised 1/3 of proceeds after expenses, and compensation for expenses (mainly blank CD-Rs for duplication) although this is not put into writing. |
2001.10.26 | Nick uses up his last $400 of credit buying a new, smaller mixing board to make recording at Red House possible again (see email to Tig 10/27). |
2001.11.01 | Nick moves out of Livia's house, by mutual agreement, and into Red House. Divorce plans are underway by this time. |
2001.11.10 | Nick asks Lynne for the $200 due for the first two weeks of Benz rental, which we can then deduce must have begun on or about 10/25. Nick also mentions that two RDA phone bills have come in, totalling $139.71 and due 11/19, and asks for a status update (it seems clear that Nick does not believe he has yet been paid for the previous month's RDA phone bills, but is willing to believe that he might have overlooked something). |
2001.11.13 | Lynne mentions the Benefit CD project in email; she is seeking funding for equipment. (Lynne also was campaigning heavily around this time for vbz.net/RH to become a non-profit, though I there's not much evidence of this in email. I was tentatively ok with the idea, but needed more details and an assurance that business details would be taken care of if this were to happen.) |
2001.11.26 | Lynne writes text for homelessness web page, to be posted at http://benefit.vbz.net and used as a promotion for the Benefit CD. Nick composes the web page, proofreads Lynne's text, configures the “benefit.” subdomain, and puts the page up. |
2001.11.27 | Livia begins leaving boxes of Nick's stuff at Red House. I believe she may have said she was planning to do this and I would have told her I didn't think I had the room for them yet, which was the case. They ended up piled behind the front doorway, and I later had to move them into the storage shed behind the Red House – and then almost immediately into L&B's storage trailer, from where most of them went directly to NC as space permitted though a few of them ended up in my rented storage space on Danielsville Road before being moved finally to NC. |
2001.12.05 | Nick configures “lynn@redhouse.com” email to forward automatically to “lynne@redhouse.com”, since several of Lynne's key correspondents seem to be stuck on misspelling her email address and Nick always ends up forwarding their emails by hand – and then receiving Lynne's replies to them when she hits “reply”... |
2001.12.07 | Lynne completes Word document containing lyrics for Benefit CD songs. Nick sends Bubba an action list reminder, signing it “your harried recording engineer”. |
2001.12 | Intensive recording and mixing sessions through most of December fail to finish the CD in time to catch any of the Christmas market, although it is in fact finished before Christmas. Apparently many of the really good deadlines passed even before I started work; the project was poorly planned, at least as an attempt to make money. I was doing late-night recording and mixing sessions at Red House most nights while also trying to keep up with shipping for vbz.net, which always gets very intense in the last couple of weeks before the 25th. The fact that we already had this potential money-making machine in place didn’t seem to matter; the CD was top priority, and in at least one case Lynne’s efforts actively hindered vbz shipping. |
2001.12.14 | The Mad Housers ask Nick to give them the madhousers.org domain; Nick checks with Lynne & Bubba to see if this is ok. |
2001.12.22 | Nick is in the process of setting up an artist account on MP3.com for The Benefit CD; at Nick's request, Lynne sends Nick track descriptions to use on the web site. |
2001.12.23 | In the last-minute shipping scramble, one large package (Siegert order) is left behind at Red House in the last shipment of the day (too late to go back to the PO by the time Nick notices it). |
2001.12.24 | Nick was on his way to NC that day, and asked Bubba if he could take the package to the PO (it would have been a substantial delay for me to do it). He said he could, so I left it with him. Later, it turned out that Lynne waylaid him all day with last-minute work on the Benefit CD (to what end, at this late date? I was baffled); see 12/27 for more. |
2001.12.24 | While waiting for one of the tracks to be approved (which will probably take until after Xmas), Nick decides to put together a partial CD to be sold on MP3.com as an EP. |
2001.12.? (shortly before Xmas) | (verbal) Lynne asks Nick for permission to borrow $500 to cover CD production costs, against RDA’s earnings from vbz sales. Nick says that he won’t know if there is enough profit to cover that until mid-to-late January, when all the debits and deposits have come in... but agrees to a very short-term loan (“maybe a few days” is what I remember saying). |
2001.12.26 10:09 | Nick, who is in NC for Xmas, asks Lynne to please use her check-writing powers to transfer $500 from the Red House account to his personal account (which was, at that time, covering order expenses due to the unavailability of a business check card from SunTrust). Nick mentions that the RH/SunTrust account balance is currently about $2300 (according to online banking), but that at least $1000 of that is spoken for by checks written and that another $1000 is owed back to Sandy, who provided it so Nick could afford to buy the merchandise to fill the last batch of Xmas orders. |
2001.12.26 14:25 | Lynne replies, agreeing to make the deposit today, tells Nick to relax because it's Xmas, and asks Nick if he can do a little modification of “the page” (MP3.com page or benefit.vbz.net, not sure which). |
2001.12.26 | Nick and Sandy return briefly to Athens to take care of a few things.(Sandy's then-husband had kidnapped her kids for Xmas, so she was unexpectedly available for travel during this time.) Nick overnights the Siegert package. |
2001.12.26 17:13 | Nick emails Lynne that it's ok if she wasn't able to make the deposit in time because Sandy was able to front him another $200 to deposit. |
2001.12.27 | Lynne says Red House was burglarized but the only thing taken was half a pack of frozen chicken belonging to Nick – actually, this was just Lynne's slightly off-kilter way of saying she had borrowed it when they ran out of food on Xmas day when all the grocery stores were closed. Lynne does not mention success or failure with regard to depositing the $500 as requested. |
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2001.12.28 | Nick asks Lynne about whether the $500 made it, because it hasn't shown up in online banking yet and his account is down to $30 and falling – but fortunately he has enough Xmas gift-money to cover the deficit. Lynne responds that she didn't do it because when she came back to do it, she saw my email saying it was no longer necessary (which was sent after 5pm, so how did she plan to get anything into the bank at that time, much less before the 2pm deadline?? Plus, at no point did I tell her to hold off; I was just reassuring her that it wasn't a huge disaster if she hadn't gotten it in that day. I was still expecting her to deposit it.) Lynne mentions the idea of opening a “savings account”, something which had apparently already been discussed -- possibly she means the Red House BB&T account we had discussed verbally? |
Early 2002 | I don't remember the exact date, but certainly by the time Livia announced her plan to raise the Red House rent to $500+, I was making plans to be elswhere. I remember a discussion with L&B (possibly in Nov or Dec of 01) where I said I probably ought to rent a storage unit and move all but my essential day-to-day stuff into it so as to make it possible for me to move somewhere else quickly if/when needed. L&B at that point – or soon thereafter – offered the use of their storage trailers, and I ended up moving a few things into Trailer #1. (Trailer #3 was the one I later ended up renting outright.) They later rearranged Trailer #1 so all of my stuff was at the back and I couldn't retrieve it when I wanted to consolidate everything into #3. I believe, though I am not certain, that I stored my TV in #1, and that it never reappeared. The Red House Break-in (see 6/11) was what ultimately precipitated the decision to move out of Red House completely (and over to Hull Road, at Lynne's suggestion). |
2002.01.02 | Apparently the idea is now on the to-do list of trying to get the Taylor House for both Red House and RDA to use for their various operations and residences; Nick emails Bubba in a sort of “why haven't I heard anything about this but I know you're busy” sort of tone. Other Red House / vbz projects seem to be in the air, too (CD-izing the catalog, uploading to t-shirtshopper). Nick has been keeping up with orders by printing them and filing them in his portable filing cabinet (the DB being solely for catalog maintenance at that point, no order-tracking yet). |
2002.01.03 | (9:48am) Nick sends Bubba a request to place an order with Wild Cotton, and a reminder to please let Nick know when this is done and to provide other specific information necessary for keeping up with things. (8:15pm) Nick asks Bubba if the order got placed. |
2002.01.04 | (9:38am) Nick asks Bubba to instant-message when he gets in. (12:56pm) “Still haven't heard from you.” There are several emails exchanged between Nick and Lynne about an RDA phone bill which Livia received (reason unknown) and paid late because she kept forgetting to hand it over to Nick. Lynne mentions the need for a Long Conversation to work out financial arrangements. |
2002.01.05 | Nick emails Lynne about an unexpected $700+ charge from a supplier; Lynne replies promptly with a theory |
2002.01.06 | Nick mentions the $1000 RDA has borrowed unexpectely. First $500 was authorized (Nick signed the check), but Lynne did not even mention the second $500 before writing the check. |
2002.01.07 | More evidence of Nick frustration with B. (9:35pm) Lynne responds that she tried to get permission to borrow more $$, but Nick was always too busy to talk with her. (Why is it assumed that no answer = permission? Why no email on the subject?) Nick responds to the accusations of always being too busy to talk. Nick also mentions urgently needing some information about whether orders got placed, in increasingly frustrated tones. |
2002.01.08 | (11:59am) Nick asks Bubba to please email or IM as soon as he gets in. (1:36pm) Nick asks Bubba again if the orders got placed. |
2002.01.09 | Nick forwards irate email from Siegert complaining about his package being so late (arrived 12/28). Nick suggests that Bubba should be the one to call Siegert and apologize. |
2002.01.10 | Nick emails Lynne asking about his missing cooking pot (the only one in the house which doesn't leak, so kind of important). Lynne admits to having taken some home which she thought belonged to them, and eventually returns the one missing. |
2002.01.19 | Nick's Sears Mastercard having been filled to capacity by several Benefit-CD-related purchases, it begins declining the hosting charges for redistribution.org (which Nick has been covering without compensation by using that card). Nick asks Lynne if there is a budget to pay for the hosting. |
2002.01.23 | Lynne says she can't cover hosting charges at all, and asks Nick if there are any funds available to cover it (presumably from RDA's share of t-shirt sales). Nick suggests that it may be time to cut some costs. Nick asks for information about a debit from a supplier which came through at an unexpected time. Lynne answers the question about the supplier and adds that a conversation from 1-3 pm on 1/24 would probably be a good idea. |
2002.01.24 | (11:40am) Nick sends L&B a long email outlining the situation as he sees it, which can also serve as his agenda for the upcoming meeting. KEY EMAIL - discusses value of services exchanged by RH/Nick and RDA/L&B, how far back to figure it, exact nature of (eventual) Benefit CD profit split, $1000 loan to RDA, and also asks whether ort not the time might be approaching when L/B might consider further work on the vbz project to be not worth their effort. (5:33pm) Lynne responds that this is a wonderful email, thanks Nick for the time and effort, mentions that it's almost what might have resulted from a summary of a two-hour conversation (which presumably didn't happen after all), and suggests what the conversation should start with (whenever we're going to have it; possibly it was intended that we would discuss it over supper at their house, to which Lynne invited me in that same email). I also remember being heavily censured – though it must have been verbal-only, because I see no evidence of it in writing – for the contents of the 11:40 email. I don't remember any details, but the gist was “how could you say that about us, after all the hard work we've done??” |
2002.01.25 | Nick asks Lynne if the redistribution.org hosting couldn't possibly come out of the GA Task Force money, which is apparently something Lynne has mentioned recently (but not in email). Lynne says they can cover future months of the hosting charges, but that the GATF money will only be enough to help them get caught up a little bit on other expenditures for which they were supposed to have been reimbursed. Lynne also states that she believes RDA has paid back its debt to Red House. |
2002.01.26 | Nick tells Bubba that Bubba must still have the RH SunTrust card, and that he can keep it because for some reason SunTrust sent another, with a different number but having Nick's name on it as did the original. (Did L or B perhaps order a spare without asking me?) |
2002.01.28 | Nick announces plans for another trip to Sandy's in NC for “sanity recovery” and working on the RH database. Nick suggests a standard procedure for placing supplier orders, starting with data from the database but allowing input from Bubba before the order is sent. |
2002.01.29 | Nick mentions (email to Lynne) plans to pay back the cable company for amounts past due due to a billing snafu. Nick apparently also left for NC after a visit to the cable company (to make a payment, probably). |
2002.01.30 | Nick (in NC) asks Bubba to IM when he gets in. Lynne replies that Bubba is outside. |
2002.01.31 | More frustrated email from Nick to B. Nick still in NC. Several back & forth emails regarding supplier orders. |
2002.02.01 | Nick forwards the latest RDA phone bills ($244.87 and $366.81) to Lynne.Lynne responds that she made arrangements with BellSouth prior to these bill and plans to carry through with them. Lynne decides that the “3 lines special” might help keep costs down (it largely turns out to be effective in hopelessly entangling responsibility for payments), |
2002.02.03 | Nick was considering driving back down to GA, but decides to stay a little longer to finish some work on the vbz database |
2002.02.04 | The BB&T account which Bubba had partially set up mysteriously acquires a balance of negative $1900. Nick emails BB&T about it and sends a copy of the message to Lynne. |
2002.02.05-6 | Emails back & forth between Nick & Lynne regarding the cable disconnection notice which Lynne is attempting to call the cable company about. |
2002.02.06 | (11:33am) Nick suggests that he might be able to cover the next cable payment if and only if there will be money coming in from GA Task Force to start paying up the unpaid rental on the Benz, but notes “if there's any sign that the GATF $ might not come thru on schedule (i.e. by the end of February), please do let me know so I can plan accordingly...” (1:04pm) Lynne says “I will be able to come up with $100 from GA Task before the end of February...” |
2002.02.08 | Nick forwards the latest RDA phone bill ($120.24) to Lynne. |
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2002.02.13 | (9:27am) Nick emails L&B that someone has removed his towel from the RH bathroom. (10:25am) Nick plans another trip to NC; Bubba replies sarcastically to the idea. |
2002.02.14 | Frank Jeffers emails Nick with severe criticisms, including possible risk of fire and loss of life, of L&B's handling of a Mad Houser Hut he allowed them to borrow & keep in the RH “village” area. |
2002.02.20 | Nick heads back to NC. (Nick only came back to Athens this time because he had agreed earlier to drive Livia to & from work on Monday while her car was in the shop.) |
2002.02.25 | (email to L&B) Nick discusses improvements made to database, plans for futrher improvements, and related financial issues. |
2002.02.26 | Nick mentions no response to emails and idly jokes about theives breaking in and removing all the computers so L&B couldn't respond... so this must have been before the break-in. Lynne's reply email puts heavy pressure on Nick to be at Red House to keep Bubba motivated to do RH work. |
2002.02.28? 9? | Nick heads back to Athens. |
2002.03.01 | (10:25) Nick emails Lynne that the financial situation is becoming increasingly unworkable – power bill 2 months overdue, rent due, payment on Sears Mastercard due, and no funds to cover any of them except temporarily. Nick asks if GATF ever came through with “any of the car money they thought might be available”. RDA pays $200 towards Benz rental, bringing the balance due down to $1600. |
2002.03.06 | Nick sends Lynne a KEY EMAIL discussing possible terms for continuing to work together. (My recollection is that I had been asked at some point not to attempt to discuss money arrangements with Bubba, as he found it difficult to think about and was entrusting all of his financial arrangements to Lynne.) Lynne's response expresses surprise and partial disagreement. This is also a KEY EMAIL because it expresses Lynne's opinion on several relevant issues. Lynne gives Nick $35 to go towards redistribution.org hosting. |
2002.03.10 | Nick updates the credit card for the redistribution.org hosting to a valid one (probably the RH SunTrust account, or possibly Nick's personal BB&T account). |
2002.03.14 | Livia and Nick sign consent to trial for divorce. |
2002.03.19 | Nick emails Lynne in panic over unexpected charges, including a backorder which Bubba had placed without consulting Nick (“bears backorder part 2” $471.15 ...I believe I had already dealt with “bears backorder part 1” for $408.43, perhaps thinking that it was a regular Liquid Blue order I was expecting; in any case, these 2 larger-than-usual amounts both being debited within a few days of each other caused serious financial problems. I believe it was at this point that I decided I could no longer trust Bubba to handle supplier ordering.) Nick exasperatedly points out that once again, no list of transactions was emailed. |
2002.03.21 ~ | Nick begins working for Juliet Easton (in Athens) in order to have operating cash. |
2002.04.08 | (4:23 pm) Lynne replies to an email of Nick's (not found) in which Nick complains about finding an extremely powerful speaker magnet placed on top of some irreplaceable but highly eraseable sound-sample discs. Lynne takes exception to Nick's harsh tone, and complains about the boxes, dropped off by Livia, taking up room in the Red House and causing rearrangement-induced mishaps to occur. The email is clearly indicative of some friction between Lynne & Nick. (9:37 pm) Lynne actually sends Nick a clear list of transactions on the borrowed credit card, though without any dates attached. |
2002.04.12 | Lynne sends Nick a further list of credit card transactions and the check she wrote to cover them (no dates, no check #). |
2002.mid-Apr – early May | Tentatively, I think these were the weeks I spent moving out of Red House and getting set up to be able to operate the business at 1242 Hull Road. |
2002.05.08 | Another transaction and check listed (these match my accounting). Nick notes (can't find original email, but it's included in Lynne's reply) that the insurance & tag fees for the Benz are due (insurance due 4/28, will be cancelled if not paid by 5/16), total $241.37. I considered this amount to be Lynne's responsibility to come up with at this point, since Lynne was the only one using the Benz and owed me some $2600 for rent by that time and had as yet only paid me $200 towards the rental – not even covering the total on tags/insurance. |
2002.05.09 | Nick announces plans to be in NC (at Sandy's) approximately 5/11-5/18. |
2002.05.11 | Lynne sends Nick an email saying “we need to talk about money”. |
2002.05.17-22 | More frictionish emails between Nick (in NC), Bubba, and Lynne – Nick trying to keep ordering operations moving while bank balances keep going negative and yelling at Bubba for being unresponsive, Lynne answering accusations in circuitous language, etc. Apparently Nick is still doing some things over at Red House – moving out? |
2002.06.06 | (10:47) In response to Lynne & Bubba's frequent gripes about the way they are being handled by Lofty Ideas, Nick suggests getting an investor and going into business for themselves, thus keeping more of the profit and being able to set their own terms. (Nick has a likely investor in mind, but makes it clear that the numbers would have to be nailed down before Nick would speak with the investor.) Lynne says she'll think it over and get back to Nick. (11:12) Lynne wants a window of opportunity to speak with Nick. Nick is apparently back in Athens, possibly at Hull Rd. |
2002.06.11 Tuesday | The Red House Break-In occurs while Nick is in NC (not sure about the date; it was definitely no later than this). Lynne talks Nick into driving down to deal with the situation; it is already 3:30pm, and Nick insists on having someone else in the car if he is going to be driving several hours after dark – so Sandy comes along for the ride, since the kids are with their father for the night. |
2002.06.12 | By the time Nick arrives, Bubba has secured the back door with a 2x4, and no further work is needed. Nick confirms Bubba's estimates of what has been taken – several batches of shirts, for the most part, though at that time there was no inventory and so no way to be certain. I believe I went right back to NC (next day) after assessing the situation, since Sandy had to be back to receive her kids. |
2002.06.13 | Lynne sends Nick a long email explaining how overwhelmed L&B are, in part because of the work necessitated by moving Nick and Red House into Hull Road. This is apparently in response to an email Nick sent from NC asking if he should buy a cheap computer found at Duke Surplus – which he had asked because L&B had been talking enthusiastically a few days earlier about expecting some significant amounts of grant money to come in for the purpose of buying computers and such. Lots of back & forth about various things mostly relating to the move to Hull Rd. and Nick's return plans. |
2002.06.16 | Nick mentions in an email to Sandy that he plans to continue sleeping over at RH at least until the phone lines are moved to Hull Rd., which will be no earlier than 6/19. |
2002.06.21 | Nick & Livia's divorce is finalized (court hearing). |
2002.06.24 | Long email from Nick to Lynne about usage of the SunTrust acccount. Nick again asks for more consistency in the ccard transaction emails. Lynne acknowledges. Much back & forth 6/24-6/26 |
2002.06.27 | Nick is still moving stuff out of Red House. |
2002.06.30 | SIGNIFICANT EMAIL: Nick makes attempt to delineate roles required for successful operation of vbz.net, with pertinent questions about which roles those involved would like to be playing.Nick then answers his own questions for himself. Lynne responds at length but without any specifics that are easy to discern. |
2002.07.01 | Nick gives Livia 30 days' notice that he is moving out of Red House. |
2002.07.02 | Lynne contacts Livia to ask about having an option for first refusal of Red House after Nick moves out. |
2002.07.09 | Nick finishes re-building a shelf for his LP records (which needed to be moved from RH) at Sandy's, and then helped Sandy move her ex's posessions out of her basement. |
2002.07.10 | Nick returns to Athens, |
2002.07.11 | Nick asks Lynne whatever became of two blank checks he apparently gave her, #1338 and #1345. |
2002.07.12 | Nick is apparently driving to NC again. |
2002.07.19-20 | Nick emails some suggestions for controlling the cigarette butt proliferation in the driveway at Hull Road (just a small corner of the general trashiness problem there). Nick also re-sends an email (originally sent 7/11 but not received) aimed at controlling other aspects of the trashiness. |
2002.07.21 | Nick returns to Hull Road. |
2002.08.07 | Nick emails another alert that the SunTrust account has gone negative again, for reasons that aren't clear. |
2002.08.08 | Nick mentions that the net change in RDA's credit with RH since 7/30 is now negative $325.48, and adds that he considers any subsequent NSFs to be RDA's responsibility until that balance is cleared. Lynne responds that she needs time to go over the figures, and that she and Nick should really talk it over face to face. |
2002.08.10 | Nick recommends against waiting for a f2f before trying to figure things out. Nick also mentions that he doesn't expect to be around much for extended periods of time any time soon. In response to another email where Lynne asks about Red House phone charges which she says RDA has been covering, Nick asks for a list of charges so he can include them in his accounting (which he is at this point spending a lot of time working on). |
2002.08.14 | Nick sends Lynne another warning about the bad state of the SunTrust balance and hopes she has been keeping an eye on it. Nick also asks Lynne if she knows when RDA will have its own account so they don't have to keep using RH's check card. |
2002.08.20 | Nick receives a returned check from SunTrust – check #1355 for $1000 was returned unpaid. I'm pretty sure Lynne wrote this check to the RDA, and no way in hell did I authorize that... but I haven't been able to find the check again to be sure. Nick asks again about when the RDA expects to have its own check card. |
2002.08.22 | Nick is back doing things at Red House – probably moving stuff out of the storage shed this time. |
2002.08.28 | Sometime on or shortly before this date, the cable guy shows up to shut off the cable (including internet) at Hull Road. Nick writes a Red House check for $207.27, the minimum due to keep the cable from being shut off, since Lynne says she doesn't have funds to deal with it. (There is disagreement over whose idea it was to get cable; I know I never would have recommended it, since we were doing ok with a dial-up at Red House, but Lynne at one point claimed that it was my idea.) Nick wonders when Lynne's proposed “quieting down” period is supposed to start, so that RDA can get its own bank account. (But they already had a SunTrust account, and surely by now SunTrust was offering business check cards?) |
2002.08.29 | Nick returns to Hull Road from somewhere (Juliet's?) and has to go in through a window, not having a key and nobody being home. Nick emails Lynne to ask for one (“I am definitely going to need a key”). Nick heads back to Sandy's / NC, taking another load of stuff. |
2002.08.31 | Lynne bizarrely insists that Livia extend the “move out” date so that Lynne & Bubba have time to move their stuff out. Lynne deals directly with Livia, against Nick's preference for moving out quickly and quietly. I was the tenant, not Lynne or Bubba. I don't know where Lynne got it into her head that she had any official tenant status. RDA's move-out deadline is now 9/9. |
2002.09.01 | Redistribution.org moved to Red House's new dedicated server. Further hosting is charged to RDA at $10/month on the spreadsheet (charges were never billed except as line items in the spreadsheet... My thinking was, “what's the point?”). |
2002.09.06 | Nick notes that RDA has made some new charges on the card (again, no notifying email), and that Lynne did not see fit to make any corrections to “my earl[ier] figuring with which you disagreed.” |
2002.09.16 | Sandy and Charles's divorce is finalized. Nick decides to move in with Sandy, and to conduct his business from there as much as possible. |
2002.09.21 | In the wake of a customer complaint about a delayed order, Nick emails Bubba to ask why the order wasn't sent when Nick and the customer both understood it was going to be sent. Further email exchanges on related subjects ensue. (These are probably good examples of the problems I had trying to rely on Bubba as a business partner.) |
2002.09.25 | The beginning of the end. A $350 check which Lynne has apparently written without permission shows up in online banking. Nick says “enough is enough” and revokes Lynne's check-writing privileges. The check clears and throws RH's bank balance thoroughly out of whack yet again. Nick says “$516.43 would bring RDA back to their standing as of July 1. At a minimum, I would expect to see $250 or so of that deposited today.” Before sending this, Nick sends Bubba a heads-up about the situation and makes it clear that he still doesn't consider it impossible for Nick and Bubba to work together; just that boundaries will have to be very clearly defined. Several significant emails follow. |
2002.10.05 | Nick returns to Hull Road, in part for a face-to-face meeting requested by Lynne. |
2002.10.06 | Nick sends a SIGNIFICANT EMAIL (“hello, hornets”) first thing in the morning, outlining the situation and setting his agenta for the meeting. Topics include the terms originally offered to the RDA for their portion of sales. The meeting never happens; Nick gets an intense headache towards evening and asks if it's ok to postpone the meeting. Lynne says that's ok. Nick and Lynne see each other in the house many times while Nick is still there, but Lynne never proposes another date or time for the meeting. Later, Lynne blames Nick entirely for preventing the meeting, as if the headache were just an excuse (and a lame one at that). |
2002.10.07 | Nick sends another email with a couple more agenda items, including an overdue gas bill someone left on his desk, and asking for the keys to the Benz. |
2002.10.10 or 11 | Nick drives back to Sandy's. |
2002.10.11 | Nick sends email summarizing financial discussion with Bubba, and what he has done as a result (changes to spreadsheet). A copy of the “Small Balancing Act” spreadsheet (changes in RDA's credit with Red House figured back to June 1) is attached. |
2002.10.12 | In response to Bubba's request that Nick stay longer so as to “get a lot of stuff coagulated to make pulling stock easier for here “ (i.e. Inventory of merchandise located at Hull Road), Nick mentions disliking to be in Athens these days and suggests that he take boxes of merchandise up to NC for inventoring there. (Nick has already done a certain amount of that by this time.) |
2002.10.24 | More disagreements about who ought to pay for what (this time, a domain renewal of Bubba's). Nick sends an update to the RDA's credit-change since June (now stands at -$535.66). Nick asks again whatever happened to the long-promised RDA bank account. Nick adds that “Red House is no longer floating RDA purchases.“ A few lightly-heated emails are exchanged. |
2002.12.01 | Sandy attempts to pay for neutering of several cats on the Hull Road premises. Bubba loses the check. |
2002.12.14 | Nick sets up streaming MP3s for the Benefit CD web site. |
2003.03.03 | Nick mentions that he is working on The Big Balancing Act (spreadsheet reconciling all known transactions between RH/Nick and RDA/Lynne/Bubba), and suggests that Lynne/Bubba should start going through their records to look for any transactions which they would like to see included (implication: items for which they believe they should be credited). |
2003.03.15 - 19 | Email exchange about storage and phone. |
2003.04.05 - 07 | Nick emails Bubba in response to a phone conversation they had (Bubba called Nick). More highly topical emails ensue. |
2003.04.28 | Lynne discontinues the 3-for-1 phone line arrangement with BellSouth. Somehow, 0474 (the Red House line) ends up with a balance of $470.58 due. Nick emails Lynne to ask about this. |
2003.04.30 | Nick emails Bubba to ask what's happening with the 2003 catalog images from Liquid Blue and The Mountain. Bubba replies that he's been very busy with lofts and hasn't had energy to deal with it, but that there is one folder of Fantasy images from LB ready to upload and he will upload it. Nick replies that this seems to reinforce the idea that Nick should have copies of the image discs so he can do image work when Bubba is too busy. |
2003.05.02 | Lynne and Nick negotiate about the splitting-off of the Red House phone line (0474). Nick agrees to pay $207 towards the phone bill as Lynne requests, and does so. |
2003.05.05 | Lynne and Nick engage in some minor negotiations about the storage trailer. |
2003.05.11 | Bubba and Nick discuss (on phone) arrangements for disbursal of RDA sales share. Bubba wants 50% in cash, 50% applied towards debt. Nick is unhappy with Bubba's handling of shipments from GA; this may have been discussed earlier, and may have been discussed in this conversation as well. |
2003.05.30 | Nick and Sandy meet with accountants in Chapel Hill to start getting the business's paperwork and taxes straightened out. I remember that by this point, I had definitely decided I could not count on Lynne or Bubba to manage the business in any capacity, although we might still be able to work together if boundaries were clearly defined. |
2003.06.22 | Nick visits Athens to do some work for Carrier and stops by Hull Road to pick up image discs from Bubba. This turns into a long conversation with L&B, because Bubba is very reluctant to give up the image discs without (apparently) some kind of reassurance that Nick is not attempting to take over the business (something like that). I believe this was also the time when I arrived at the trailer to find that Bubba had changed the lock – I had a key to the original lock, but not to the one he put there. Bubba gave some explanation about needing that lock for some other purpose. Nick sends email (upon returning to NC that evening, presumably) to L&B summarizing his understanding of that conversation. Attached to the email is a copy of the “Big Balancing Act” spreadsheet. |
(The following time-span is largely covered by the “Virtual Battle Zone” web site.) | |
2003.06.24 Wednesday | Bubba calls Nick close to Nick's bed time; they talk for an hour or two and Nick eventually has to hang up on Bubba. The substance of the disagreement was that Bubba did not want to allow Nick to have possession of the master image discs (or perhaps wanted some kind of compensation or guarantee in return). If he was willing to settle for something in exchange, it was never quite clear what that would be, though it might have had something to do with keeping possession of more (all?) of the inventory.Nick ultimately states that any further conversations will need to be in mediation. Bubba protests this repeatedly until Nick hangs up. |
2003.06.27 Friday | Nick sends Bubba substantial email reiterating the need for mediation, and that Nick/RH is willing to front the expense (implication: it can of course be decided in mediation who ultimately will pay for that mediation, although this point apparently escapes L&B). Subsequent emails serve largely to emphasize that there are communication problems between Nick and the Grievers. |
2003.07.13 | Nick informs L&B of plans to visit Athens to pick up Anna for a North Carolina visit, and to pick up some items from storage at Hull Road while in town. Lynne objects to the apparent casualness of this announcement, in view of the fact that Nick has “hijacked the store” and also not returned any of the merchandise taken to NC for inventorying. Lynne adds that any trust L&B may have had for Nick has been “shattered” (with an implication that this makes it very unpleasant for them to be around Nick) and makes vague statements about whether or not the trailer will continue to be accessible to Nick. |
2003.07.14 | (9:15 am) Nick states that the betrayal of trust goes both ways, that he has been paying L&B cash up front for the storage despite believing that L&B owed him money far over and above the cost of the storage, and that he expects the storage to be available. Nick says he will be there Tuesday morning and will not come to the house (so as to avoid causing more unpleasantness for L&B than is necessary). Nick also explains his plan for emptying out the trailer under existing budget and time constraints, and suggests that if L&B do not feel they can provide accessible storage to Nick anymore, that they should send him an eviction notice (some suggested wording is included). Nick also asks for details about the accessibility of the Benz for towing purposes, and suggests a date when he might be able to have it towed. Nick also suggests that they might have it towed themselves, and he will let them know where he wants it to go. (11:04 am) Lynne replies, saying (1) we disagree with everything you say; (2) Bubba asked repeatedly to be allowed to pay for orders. (This last is something I only remember happening once, and as I remember it he was more suggesting that he might be able to loan some money for a short term but would need it back soon – and I did not feel comfortable guaranteeing that I would be able to pay him back, as I was still borrowing frequently from others to cover RH expenses at that time). Lynne says she will check with Bubba on the Benz situation (but I never heard any more about it.) (11:31 am) Nick responds to Lynne's responses. (early afternoon) Nick and Sandy depart for Athens (9:49 pm) Lynne asks Nick not to arrive at Hull Road before 9. Nick does not check email before going to Hull Road. I have no idea whether we arrived there after 9:00 or perhaps a few minutes before; either way, it doesn't seem to have become an issue. |
2003.07.15 | (morning, time not certain) Nick and Sandy stop by Hull Road and retrieve a few things from the trailer then head off back to NC. Nick says he will work on getting the plan together to move everything out of the trailer, and asks again for information about moving the Benz. |
2003.07.30 | Nick emails Lynne that he tentatively plans to be in Athens 8/8 for some contract work and may be able to move the Benz at that time. Nick says he will need to get the key from L&B at that time, if not before. |
2003.07.31 | Lynne experiences some difficulty accessing her redhouse.com email; Nick directs her to the webmail interface he has recently discovered on the dedicated server. |
2003.08.01 - 04 | Nick informs Lynne that he will be cancelling the RH phone line (0474) and that they might want to move the ringmaster number (currently assigned to that line) over to one of their other phone lines. Lynne protests that she doesn't understand why Nick continues to eliminate tools needed for continuing to partner with Bubba. Many small accusations and replies are exchanged. Nick sends another copy of the Big Balancing Act spreadsheet (they had trouble reading the file, so several weeks later I mailed a printout). |
2003.08.29 | Nick asks Lynne to mail him the Benz keys . (No reply?) |
2003.09.20 Sunday | Nick informs Lynne that he plans to be in Athens on 9/26 (Friday), renting a Uhaul to hopefully move everything out of the trailer and also hopefully moving the Benz. Nick also says that he might have time to move the piano if a little help were available, but otherwise probably won't have time. Nick would like to stop by Hull Road Friday afternoon/evening to scout out the situation as far as accessing the Benz for towing and accessing the trailer with a Uhaul truck. Nick would also like to pick up the Benz keys at that time. Nick plans to spend all day Saturday moving things out of the trailer, and to return to NC on Sunday. Nick prints a copy of the email and a copy of The Big Balancing Act spreasheet and mails them all to Hull Road with delivery confirmation. They arrive on 9/24 according to usps.com. (No response from L/B.) |
2003.09.24 | Nick informs Lynne that he is now leaning towards 10/3-4 for the Athens visit, and that it may get pushed back still further to 10/11. (No response from L/B on this issue.) |
2003.09.25 | Bubba calls at 5:42 pm asking for the username and password of the redistrbution.org domain registration so he can move it to another server, and then again two minutes later to ask Nick to please pick up the phone and give him the information. Nick emails Bubba irritatedly but sends him the requested information. (At the time, I thought my response said something about not calling me – but apparently I just said not to call repeatedly and that he should not insist that I pick up the phone when he is leaving a message. I think I also thought “don't call me at all” was implicit in the 6/27 email's statement that any further communication would need to be through a mediator.) Nick emails Lynne that the visiting plans have now moved to 10/17-18 for sure. We thought they were definite because we had a commitment from The Arc for respite care over the night of 10/17, but at the last minute it turned out they had made a mistake. |
2003.10.16 | Nick emails Lynne that the sitter which Nick & Sandy had been promised was not in fact available for 10/17, so the date will have to slip yet again. We were going to get a commitment from the Arc and the sitters first before setting a date this time. Nick also asks if L/B have any objections to his calling the towing company from NC to have the car towed, if it can be done. (No response from Lynne or Bubba.) |
2003.10.30 | Nick emails Lynne to ask how she would prefer the check to be sent. Lynne answers this question. Lynne says that she had told Neff that the trailers would be empty October first (so Neff could retrieve them), and then later that they would be empty by the middle of October. Lynne says she can't make any guarantees that they won't cause problems about this, and adds that they are having difficulty responding to Nick's emails “like nothing is going on”. Lynne accuses Nick of having “stolen the business”. She claims that the accountings Nick has sent are “partial accountings containing “'made up figures', 'left out figures' and 'outlandish charges' made up in retrospect”. |
2003.11.01 | Nick responds with apologies but counters that the Grievers don't seem to be working very much to reach a solution, having neither suggested a date range for mediation nor provided information needed to make moving Nick's stuff out of the trailer feasible (aside from never having confirmed whether or not the dates suggested earlier were acceptable or not). Nick revokes the offer of mediation (my programming contract had ended and I no longer had the cash to throw around, though I didn't especially want them to know that) and says that any further communication must be in writing. Nick reiterates that he has asked many times for a list of errata or counter-claims to be made against his accounting, none of which they have provided. Nick addresses the rest of the points in Lynne's email and finishes up with a list of specific practical questions (some of them already asked on 7/14): is the Benz accessible, do they have the keys, do they object to Nick's moving the piano as well. Nick emphasizes that the more answers he can get, the easier it will be to get his possessions off the Grievers' property sooner. |
2003.11.03 6:49 pm | Bubba leaves a message describing a line-item which he believes should be included in the accounting. (Bubba adds that he believes Nick is making a serious mistake in the way he has treated Lynne & Bubba.) |
2003.11.03 7:30 pm | Nick emails Bubba to insist that he communicate only in writing, and asks Bubba to please re-send the dispute via email so there will be a record of it. (By this time, though, Nick has begun taping all of Bubba's voice messages, so there is a record regardless.) Nick also asks Bubba if he can give an approximate date and amount for each payment, since there was apparently no record of it (there is probably a deposit record, but that would not indicate the source and may be combined with other transactions). |
2003.11.03 9:00 pm | Bubba calls to say he hadn't understood that Nick didn't want him to call, and that he will now stop calling. Bubba says he doesn't understand where Nick is coming from, says he is still Nick's friend, asks Nick to chill out, accuses Nick of “pissing on” Bubba and dismissing Bubba's opinion. |
2003.11.04 | Bubba writes an email calling Nick a “pissy prick”, sends it to Nick and cc:s Nick's dad. Nick's dad decides it's time to stop pussyfooting and hire a lawyer... |
2003.11.05 | Lynne sends email responding to Nick's 11/1 email, but it doesn't seem to resolve anything. Nick talks to a NC lawyer who advises going to pick everything up (or as much as possible) unnanounced. |
2003.11.23 | Nick drives down to GA. |
2003.11.24 | Nick rents a Uhaul and goes to Hull Road. The storage trailer is gone; nearby on the ground is a large sign saying “Free Stuff!”. Nick speaks with Lynne, who informs Nick that Neff has hauled the trailer away and that Nick's stuff is down at Neff's location. Lynne declines to get Neff's number for Nick. Nick drives off, gets the number, calls Neff, and verifies that his stuff is in fact there, and not in immediate danger. Nick drives back to the Grievers' house and asks for the keys to the Benz and permission to have the piano moved. Lynne and Bubba refuse to give a clear answer, so Nick calls the police. In front of the police, Bubba refuses to allow Nick to take the Benz or the piano. Nick drives over to Neff and spends the rest of the afternoon moving items out of the trailer and into a rented storage unit. There isn't time to move everything out, but Neff says the trailer will not be emptied before 12/5. Nick then returns the Uhaul. |
2003.11.25 | Nick gets a copy of the police report and picks up blank warrant applications from the courthouse. Nick drives back to NC. |
2003.11.28 | Nick removes the last of the RDA email redirects (b@vbz.net), soon after which Bubba sends an email (cc:ing Nick's dad again) protesting this action and accusing Nick of having a childish snit. |
2003.12.01 | Nick, still in NC, finally is able to get word from Neff that they will not be able to extend the rental of the trailer past 12/5. Nick hires an Athens locksmish to drill out the padlock on the trailer (since there isn't time to get the key down to Athens) and local labor to retrieve a few remaining crucial items from the trailer. |
2003.12.05 | Nick fills out warrant applications for the arrest of Lynne and Bubba for theft by taking (because that is what the police report said) of the Benz, piano, merchandise, and computer equipment, and mails them to the Athens Courthouse. LaborReady moves the requested items out of the trailer. |
2003.12.09 | Email arrives, sent to b@vbz.net, from a company in Japan, indicating that Bubba owes them money and that they are tired of Bubba's excuses. (Nick replies to sender, giving Bubba's new email address.) Soon after this, the court summons arrives, setting the court date as 1/8. |
2004.01.08 | The Grievers do not show up for the hearing, apparently in the belief that it was the next day. The judge orders them to return the Benz, piano, and computer equipment (but not the merchandise), and gives them 30 days to respond. |
2004.01.14 | An email arrives from a US company (sent to b@vbz.net), indicating that Bubba owes them a total of $387, and stating that they will be initiating collection procedures on 1/31. (Nick replies to sender, giving Bubba's new email address.) |
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