Is This The Last Borders?

For those of you that regularly read my blog, I have this quasi-relationship
with the closing of Borders Books. Maybe it's just a case of denial, but I will
miss them and it's still not easy to accept that they are going out of business.
Just past Lake Tahoe, we drove through Carson City. I'd never been here and
was looking forward to seeing the State Capitol of Nevada (yes, geeky, but
something I like to do). However, about the only thing interesting about
Carson City is the fact that they have a Borders...and now it's closing.


This store obviously survived the first round of cuts several months ago.
I'm not sure why this survived and our store in Grand Junction didn't,
but that decision wasn't up to me. Entering the store, there is little
doubt that they want you to know that the store is indeed, closing.


We used to enjoy going to cafes at different Borders, but true to form, this
is one of the first areas of the store that closed down.


At least they were nice enough to put up a sign telling people that the cafe
was closed. Not that it was really needed.


This store is still in the fairly early stages of closing. Everything was pretty
much only 25% off and there were still lots of things left to buy. If I lived near
here, I would stalk this map section when it got to be at least 50% off!
Regardless, Lynn bought a couple of things and I purchased Moscow and
Colorado Lonely Planet books as well as a Russian map I've been looking for,
so the visit wasn't a complete loss. Back on the road again afterwards, but
still a little sad that this may be the last Borders that I visit before they're
all gone.

A Sad Farewell to Borders

As a Borders Rewards Member, I received this email today from
the CEO of Borders. Borders is going out of business. Earlier
this year, our store in Grand Junction closed it's doors, and now
all locations across the country will be doing the same. Back in
1988, I made my first purchase at Borders...at their flagship,
and original store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a hardcover copy
of James Michener's "Hawaii" that I had to special order. I loved the
store, and everything it offered. This was years before ordering books
on Amazon was even a twinkle in the internet's eye. In fact, the
internet wouldn't even start to become popular for years to come.
Today, 23 years later, the entire business is going away. Mostly
because it couldn't keep up with internet sales and the emergence
of e-readers. Borders is going away...and it will be missed.

Dear Borders Rewards Member

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Borders will be closing its
doors after more than 40 years of igniting the love of reading in
generations of customers. I am sorry to have to share this news
with you as I feel you have been here right along with us as we
fought valiantly to save the company. I want to personally thank
you for your loyalty and support, whether you were one of the
nearly 1.8 million customers who signed up for the Borders Rewards
Plus program, shopped in our stores or on Borders.com, or simply
took the time to e-mail or call the company to express your support.

You might be asking yourself, what happened? How could it be that
there won’t be a Borders moving forward? In a nutshell, following
continued negotiations and the best efforts from all parties, no
bidders presented a formal proposal to keep our company operating
as a going concern. Therefore, under the terms of our
debtor-in-possession financing agreement, we presented to the
court for approval the proposal for firms to purchase our stores’
assets and administer the liquidation process.

We had worked very hard toward a different outcome. The fact is
that Borders has been facing headwinds for quite some time,
including a rapidly changing book industry, the eReader revolution,
and a turbulent economy. We put up a great fight, but regrettably,
in the end, we weren’t able to overcome these external forces.

Going out of business sales begin in stores Friday, July 22. I encourage
you to take advantage of this one-time opportunity to find exceptional
discounts on your favorite books and other great merchandise. Gift
cards will be honored during the liquidation sales, and Borders Rewards
Plus members will continue to enjoy their Borders Rewards Plus discounts
through August 5. Further, all Borders Bucks will be honored until they
expire on July 31.

For decades, Borders stores have been destinations within communities—
places where people have sought knowledge, entertainment and enlightenment
and connected with others who share their passions. I feel privileged to have
had the opportunity to lead Borders and play a role in the true and noble cause
of expanding access to books and promoting the joy of reading. As a company,
we cannot thank you enough for giving us the opportunity to serve you and the
millions of other customers who have shopped our stores over the years. My
sincerest hope is that we remain in the hearts of readers for years to come.

Many thanks,

Mike Edwards
CEO of Borders

Borders = Sad

We went to our local Borders yesterday and with Leslie and Gina's help,
we were able to load our bookcases up and haul them home. It was
sad though to see how empty the store was. It's now officially closed
and it sure did look like it. There were a few fixtures left that people
hadn't picked up yet, but all the things that made it such a fun place
to go were gone. We still have a Barnes and Noble in town...but it's
not the same.

Our Little Pieces of Borders

Photo courtesy Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

I mentioned a few weeks ago that our local Borders Bookstore is
closing for good as part of the company/nationwide debt consolidation.
200 stores are closing, and unfortunately our store is one of them.


During our flood, we lost several pieces of furniture, including a chair,
a couch and bookcases. Because Borders is closing, they're selling
everything. Not only Books, CDs, DVDs, but the furnishings of the
store as well. When we visited the store, we picked up a couple of
really nice chairs from their Cafe that match our other furniture
very well.


We're really big fans of books of course, and it seems like we
never have enough bookshelf space. Since we lost a couple of
bookcases in the flood, we were thrilled that the store was selling
all of the bookcases in the store. We were able to purchase four
really tall cases that will fit perfectly floor to ceiling in our house.
Now we'll have room for our expanding library for years to come!

Who Mourns for Borders?

I am not a happy camper today. In the big picture,
it's not a big deal. However, in the land of Tom's
hangout time, it's a tragic day. Borders Bookstores
announced that it's closing 200 of it stores across
the country. Included in this list of closures is
our location in Grand Junction, Colorado. As a kind
of tradition, Lynn and I would go there on Thursday
afternoon, buy a coffee or a pot of tea and spend the
time reading books and magazines. Now we will have to
go to the other big box bookstore in town to do the
same. I hardly think that if we would have bought more
books or magazines at Borders they would be more
financially secure. At least we bought something!
I have been a fan of Borders since I first visited
their original location in Ann Arbor, Michigan back
in the late 1980's. I followed them wherever I lived
since then and was thrilled when I found there was a
location in Grand Junction when we moved there in 2006.

I read an article trumpeting the decline of this big
box book chain as a "victory" for the Independent
bookstore. I say, hardly is this the truth. I feel
that small, independent booksellers are in bigger
trouble now than ever. What drove Borders near non-
existence was the fact that Amazon.com and e-books
are driving store-front book retailers out of business
in general. If a company that has capital assets of
1.2 Billion (yes, with a "B") and very large inventories
cannot make it, how will the little guys survive. I
believe in small business, but let's be real. Most of
the time, the small bookseller doesn't have the inventory,
prices or amenities that an online retailer like Amazon
has.

So, who will be the real winners when the battle for
books settles, and who will remain?

1) Amazon.com - They do it better (and cheaper than anyone)
Plus, you can shop in your pajamas at all hours of the day.

2) Used Book Stores - If they smarten up, used book stores
will begin lowering their prices to move inventory. I've
been to too many used bookstores where prices are way too
high and I ended up not buying anything and walking out the
door.

3) Local Libraries - If patrons are smart, they will continue
to vote for bond/tax issues that will support/build really
good community libraries. Public Libraries are still one of
the best ideas and best values around.

So there you go. Borders in Grand Junction will be an empty
building by the end of April. And I'll miss it. I will move
on...I just hope that the retail book world will move on as well.

Mixed Emotions

It was nice to be able to sleep in a bit today as I knew
I wasn't going to be flying. I've been going to be pretty
early though as I'm trying to catch up from the lack of
sleep I received on the plane ride across the Pacific, so
I got up around 7:30am anyway. When I turned on the
television, I learned from One News that there had been
a 7.9 earthquake off the coast of Samoa and that a
tsunami had occurred. Tsunamis are taken very seriously
in New Zealand since it is an island nation and reports
stated that a wave from 1-3 meters was headed this way!
New Zealand also has very strong connections to all of
the other nations of the Pacific, no matter how small since
many of it's residents live on these islands and vice versa.
New Zealand is the 'big city" for many of these islands.
The time came when the waves would be arriving on one
of the North Island's capes and it turned out that the wave
was less than 1 meter, causing no damage, or loss of life
by the time it reached NZ. There were no reports of any
waves on the South Island but I'm guessing that the damage
in Samoa was considerable.

I decided to spend the day at the Borders Store in Riccarton
Mall since I wanted to do some research for some traveling
we want to do after I get off the Ice. Little did I know that
there is a school holiday going on and the mall was packed
with screaming kids. Ugh. I grinned and bore it, trying to
keep a "half full" attitude. One nice thing about Christchurch
is there is a very Asian culture here so you can find Asian
food almost everywhere. And at this mall, it's no exception
as I enjoyed good, cheap Sushi for lunch. YUM! I did my
research at the bookstore, drank some coffee and headed
home to the hotel. There I received a very nice surprise!
The plane scheduled to go down to the Ice had a small,
non-life-threatening mechanical problem and had to turn
around (called a boomerang) after an hour in the air. This
meant that I would not be flying tomorrow either! YAY!
The note also said that I would have to go back out to the
CDC in the morning to get more per diem money (about
$60US/$80kiwi). The earliest I'll be leaving for the Ice now
is on October 2nd (October 1st in the States)!

The Day in Denver

Lynn reminded me tonight that in all the busy-ness yesterday,
we had both forgotten that my Dad passed away, one year ago,
on September 24th. I miss my Dad terribly and I think of him
almost every day. However, I think he'd be ok with the fact that
we forgot as we are making it through the grieving process.
Although not having him here with us is not easy, I hope it will get
easier with time.


So...today, I started the two day process of orientation at the
Raytheon Polar Services Company in Centennial, Colorado. It
seems like the information changes very little year after year, but
attending is one of the requirements of working on the Ice, so
it's something we all deal with. I liked these flags that were flown
at the Pole that are on display at the entrance to the building.


After my orientation was over, we received a message from our
friend (and my boss) Susie. She had left a binder and her itinerary
at the office and asked if we could bring it to her at the airport.
Not a problem, as we drove it there and saw our friend Liz there
waiting with her. For those of you that might remember, Liz
traveled with us quite a bit in Ecuador and Peru. I will see both
of them in Christchurch and have dinner with them the evening
before they head to the Ice. The day before me.


We enjoyed an excellent dinner at a restaurant called Citron New
World Bistro in Denver. We had been here several years ago when
it was still a Marie Callender's Restaurant. Definitely a nice last
dinner in the US for quite some time.


Of course we still had the evening ahead of us and one of
our favorite cheap things to do is going to Border's Books.
We had a big pot of tea and read some books and magazines.
Yes, not exactly an exciting Friday night, but something we
like to do. A relaxing last night in the States.