Things I didn’t squeeze into the newsletter.

First off I want to say that our hearts go out to those in Southern California who have lost their homes or been displaced by the fires. It is hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that Northern California is having such a sparkling Fall, while Southern California is experiencing one of the greatest disasters in its history. If it would be of any help for the next month or so, and you need a place to stay or just want to get out of the smoke, come stay with us. I will give you any room I’ve got for our cost of servicing the room, say $75 for a standard room and $125 for a suite or cottage.

Secondly I can’t stress enough how important your comments are. At the end of every month I sit down and read through the comment sheets left behind in the rooms. Not only do I get a great insight as to what you want or how we could have done something better, I also get very warm encouragement that I truly cherish, as well as pass onto my staff to encourage and motivate them. Plus we have a staff bonus program where, on a good month of comments, they can earn a bonus just as big as their normal two-week check. It is huge for them. I have struggled, however, in responding to comments that I thought deserved my response. If you were expecting a response and did not get one, I apologize. Occasionally I am lazy and don’t get around to it, but mostly I can’t tell who the comment came from. Many comments are not signed in a way I can read them and many put a date that could either be your check-out date or check-in date so I don’t know who to send the response to. In the future (I just thought of this as I was writing) I will put a little box on the Comment Sheet to check if you want a response, along with a line to print your name. In the mean time, if you still have something that you feel needs a response, please e-mail me at jim@winecountryinn.com .

Along the lines of comments, if you would really like to help The Wine Country Inn thrive (and help put my kids through college) you could go to Trip Advisor, Yahoo Travel or any of a bunch of other sites and post your comment there. That would be really cool.

The not-so-cool thing about blogs is that the older entries get buried down below. If you want to see what else I have had to say, please scroll down.

See ya soon Jim