“One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
Today is April 19,2004. Ten years ago today, I walked in and filed a fictitious business name statement with the San Diego County recorder and got the first business license from the City of Carlsbad, California for Logical Expressions.
Logical Expressions is the company that produces Computer Companion magazine. Today our little company is 10 years old. Like most businesses, LEI’s fortunes have risen and fallen over the years..
But we are grateful that our little company has survived because Logical Expressions literally changed our lives.
Like most life-changing experiences, the company started with just a tiny germ of an idea. My husband James and I were on vacation celebrating our wedding anniversary in a little mountain town called Idyllwild in Southern California. We were living and working in the San Diego area and not enjoying city life much at all. Back then, we felt like we had to get away for a “tree fix” about once/month, or we’d go insane. As a result, we saw a lot of the resorts and campgrounds in the Southern California mountains.
On this particular trip, it was raining and dreary, but we took a walk around the pretty neighborhood where the lodge was located. As we wandered through the drizzle, we realized that the houses were extremely nice. And extremely expensive. We wondered what the owners did that made it possible for them to afford these pricey homes. (Idyllwild has no apparent way to make a living other than tiny tourist shops.)
A little light bulb went off. We realized that some of those houses probably had a phone line connected to a modem. The Internet was brand new, but right then and there, we realized that if you have a modem and your own company, you can live where you want.
This one, small powerful idea refused to go away. After we got back to the city, within a month, we’d come up with a company name and signed up for a small business course. We wrote a business plan for Logical Expressions, and designed a logo. I started working part time for Logical Expressions while I was still employed. By January 1995, I quit my job. James quit his job that August. We got proof of concept that we could work with clients remotely, so we started looking for new places to live.
We settled on the Panhandle area of Idaho, which had the right combination of endless trees and reasonably inexpensive real estate. We had planned to rent for a year to see if we liked it, but then couldn’t find a rental house. So we bought an unfinished log home in the Sandpoint area.
We moved us, our cats, and all our computer equipment to a tiny rental ski chalet on Schweitzer Mountain where we lived and worked while the house was finished. To our clients, the two moves, and 2,000-mile transition were virtually seamless. The only thing that changed was our contact information. We remained as easy to contact as we were when we were in San Diego County.
Like any business, Logical Expressions has changed and evolved. And so has our magazine. But we continue to roll on doing what we do. Even after 10 years, I wouldn’t change a thing. After all, how many people get to live and work where they want with a jaw-dropping forest view out their window?
So big congratulations and thank you to Logical Expressions for making it possible. And here’s to another 10 years!