The new site will be up in a few hours, prolly before you read this, but I gotta tell ya, the last two months of trying to pull this together has been a little bumpy. That the site is up at all is a frickin' miracle.
I made an uninformed decision. And it cost me. This is not real easy to admit, as is often the case when you shoot yourself in the foot. Hindsight being 20/20 is so annoying at times! I had the resources at hand, but my enthusiasm to get the collection in front of people blurred my vision. OCD, ADHD, call it what you will, I lost focus. There was so much going on around building the collection, I had this thought: “Webmasters have been around for decades. Grab one! They are bound to know what they're doing in this day and age, no matter who you tap!” I was given a suggestion, tossed my fate to the wind, and handed my internet personna to someone that simply didn't have a single clue about how to manage their business, considering reality as an index. Basic stuff, right? Integrity, honesty, hard work, blah, blah, blah.... It didn't work out. The Drake Intelligence Group took me for a ride and I took it in the shorts. My bad.
I've known Marc Mintz, the 'Big Cheese' at the MacXperts for over 20 years. He has never once led me to believe he is anything less than an honest person. Nobody, and I mean nobody, touches any of my 4 Macintosh computers but him. I'm thinking it might have been a good idea to consult him prior to embarking on having a website made for me. Ya think? His finger is not in touch with computing, his entire being is ensconced in the digital world. I kinda blew that call, right off the bat, by not contacting him.
A 35+ year friend has invested in this venture. He has acquired several nice pieces from me over the years and has a great deal of faith in my ability to procure high-end merch. He came in with me around the whole website idea and we built the current collection. Pretty respectable if I say so myself; a few museum pieces—nice stuff.
So, I blew the call on getting the website done, some of which my good friend is financially involved in, and it got to the point that I called upon him to protect his investment, by assuming communication responsibilities with the Drakes. Life, being a crap-shoot at best, had landed me with certified sociopaths as webmasters, and my delicate nature and tendency toward honesty was not in line with their agenda. My investor, whom I often refer to as 'Mohandus', was unable to establish meaningful dialogue with them, and like I said previous, “...it cost me.” Boy, did it cost me.
There was a felony committed--computer tampering. Not even kidding. Homeland Security has jurisdiction in that area and I'm not real sure it's a good idea to fuck around with those guys. Doughnuts are a great distraction when facing your inability to embrace integrity. But there's a little insight into what a mess I made concerning acquiring a webmaster. I'm astonished at my decision making process, and am finding it hard to accept that I chose to believe in basic human nature, when all around me have abandoned it, in favor of associating with “can do” people, who have repeatedly proven themselves as trustworthy.
Something amazing happened though. My favorite collector gave my name to an actual professional webmaster of considerable talent and impecable integrity. She sternly took the reigns of the Native Treasures internet presence, and like magic, the website was transformed into a viable, easy to navigate, accessible, and intelligently designed venue for my art collection.
I perform considerable research on all the items represented on the Native Treasures website; take my investigation of their time period and origins, as far as humanly possible. Agreed, my reading list is daunting, but I'm no novice. I just forgot to apply that regimin to a pretty important aspect of doing business.
Oops! Too many balls in the air.
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