Today was my first day back in sunny California. I had a meeting with our personal banker to finalize the setup of our business checking account - what a relief it was to receive our personal DressMonkey business checks and online banking account. Finally, after months of company expenses being paid from my personal account, the financials are starting to come together!

Separating business expense from personal expense will allow Coley and I to fully benefit from our Limited Liability Partnership status. The reason that we (like any LLP) do not want to blur the lines of what is personal v. business is that we would lose the liability protection that the entity provides us. What’s important, basically, is the fuzzy feeling I have now knowing that my capital investment in DressMonkey, which I was scared about in the beginning, has become more secure and therefore justifiable.

The meeting also marked the first official DressMonkey business of any kind that I was a part of this side of the Pacific. If today proved anything though, it was that meetings will be much more pleasant here than in China: no business cards were forced upon me, coffee was served instead of tea, and there were smells of popery instead of cigarettes. I even saw a cast member from MTV’s reality show Laguna Beach standing cashing a check!

Warm weather, civility in the workplace, and superficial pop-culture: a case of total reverse culture shock has set in. But it ain’t that bad. At least my investment is in order.