Wurdsand, Inc. #

After five years of working at Schulz Motors and knowing my Uncle lacked in the confidence that maybe I knew somethings that could be helpful. It was clear to me and my Dad that I had no future there and I think he and my brother Rodney started to have the same thoughts. Which eventually became the split from this enterprise as they started their own Dealership a couple of years later.

I saw my exit when a college from my Fast Flow Printing days, Al and I decided to start a printing company that we called Wurdsand, Inc. It is a play on words with the way that it sounds. When you look at the business card it just looks like a weird name for a company but when you sound it out you get “Words and Ink” and then it starts to make sense as a printing company.

I don’t remember the details of how we even funded this venture but I must have put some money into the operation and Al brought all his equipment. We setup shop on the Southside of Edmonton and were not a good match as business partners. We both had the technical skills to produce the work but neither one of us were sales people. We were soon running out of money and needed some way to fund the whole operation. One time Al and I were out at a Maxwell Taylor’s which is a restaurant similar to T.G.I.Fridays here in the US. Al was impressed with all these promo cards that appeared on the tables and often said he’d like to get the contract to do their printing. I needed some extra money so besides the printing adventure with Al, I got a job at Maxwell Taylor’s and got to know the lay of the land. I talked to the General Manager and told him about my venture with Al and he agreed to give us a shot. From then on we started printing all the inserts and cards for the Restaurant. His office was not in the restaurant but in an office tower about a half a mile away in a space that they shared with the Alberta HeadQuarters for Burger King. There were no Burger Kings in Edmonton at the time as they needed to close a deal with the Burger King operating in Edmonton which was a franchise holder for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

We had a friend that lived just a couple of blocks away from our shop and Maxwell Taylor’s and she had and operated a photo typesetting shop from her home. When Maxwell Taylor’s was coming up with a new menu, she got the contract to produce the typesetting for the menu. There were other jobs but I cannot recall what all we printed and produced out of that shop.

I do remember being involved in other side projects and in particular putting together a Haunted House one Halloween in connection with one of the major rock radio stations. This was put together by some weird guy named Robin. He had some mental issues, suspect he might have been bi-polar, but he somehow got involved in these various projects. One good thing that came out of it was meeting and working with what I would fondly refer to as the Southside Gang. Most notably were Jim Beverage, David Barns, Dave Summers, Animal, Candice Clover and others. These projects were put together by this weird guy Robin, and he was strange but interesting. I don’t know how I met Robin, but he seemed to have these strange connections like really cheap rent in buildings downtown that would soon be going through some renovations. I remember using some of that space to use as an office to interview other songwriters and so on, that whole affair seems strange to me even now but I really did get to meet some people that I might never have met up otherwise.