Flipping Insanity

I'm moving!

2009-06-15T04:52:00.000-07:00

In two ways, actually. First, I've already move to a new blog. Second, we're moving to a new house. Still renting, but it's cheaper, better and bigger. Just the way this 'Murrican likes things.

The new blog is called "What Did We Learn Today?" Why a new blog? I was getting sick of the moderate amount of effort it took to segment my online life and offer material relevant to six different blogs. (You didn't think this was my only rodeo, did you? ;-)). In other words, I'm consolidating all my blogs into one, although I'll probably keep the Truck Buddy business blog running, and I'll keep posting to the Joseph Update for family reasons. But the bulk of the writing I do online will happen at "What Did We Learn Today."

Another reason for the switch is that, not to be too cryptic, something has changed. I think I'm a little more serious about the writing I do, and while I will strive to entertain (and do it far more often than I ever did here!) I want it to be worth something, not just a bunch of snark. Man, I hate people who just try to be snarky all the time.

Anyway, this blog is now more or less closed. If you want to follow me over to the new place, I'd love to see you there!

Best,
C.

p.s. About the new house, I've written a bit about it over at WDWLT. There are pictures, too!

Today I dropped an entertainment center on my face

2009-06-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

Literally. Well, okay, not quite literally. I had to patch the details of what actually happened together from the one eye-witness, the guy holding the other end of it. His name is Stu, and after today, he's my boy. I may even promote him to Truck Buddy #1 status because, well, my #1 took the day off. On a Saturday. I don't care if it IS your first wedding anniversary -- this is bidness, TJ.

Bidness.

Anyway, what happened is this...I think. We were carrying a fairly light-weight yet two-person TV stand up a narrow staircase out of the basement of one of those pleasant little D.C. basement apartments. (Very nice customers, by the way.) This much I remember. I also remember being especially careful because the stairway -- only three steps or so -- was covered in that ultra-slick slime/moss that, comparatively, makes an oil slick as tactile as sandpaper.

We'd successfully negotiated the steps and a slight turn, and walked across a short patio. There were three steps down to the alleyway where the "Peneske" truck was parked. That's where it gets a little hazy, but let me try to describe my impressions of the moment.

Stepping down...

No step...no problem, I've missed steps holding heavy-ish things before...

Still no step...

Getting worried now. (A half-second has elapsed at this point).

Still no step...

Body reacts...somehow. Ever been so deep underwater and run out of breath? It was a little like that. But instead of gulping for air, my foot twitched looking for solid ground. Before I could say "Uh, Stu, I've lost the Earth," I was flying backward with a TV stand going up somewhere...toward my face.

I think. I'm not sure because several things happened simultaneously at that moment.

1. Somebody hit me in the face with an ACME hammer.
2. Somebody hit me in the back of the head with an Empire State Building.
3. I saw a flash of light. And, quite possibly, Jesus.
4. Somebody grabbed my elbows with pliers -- big, industrial sized pliers with jagged teeth -- and pulled. Hard.

Ever been caught impossibly between two immovable objects? Say, in coach between two corpulent twins? Kinda like that, only firmer.

The next thing I know, Stu is looking down at me with huge, white eyes. "Dude! Are you alright? I was laughing, but then I saw you hit the second time, and...huh?"

I tried to say something, but whatever I managed must have scared the big lug, because he just kept saying "Oh shit oh shit oh shit."

Standing up was a bit of a problem. Nothing had landed on my legs, and yet I couldn't even stand up straight. The world kept wobbling, or the floor of the world had gotten warped in the rains of the last few days...

This is the kind of thing I was thinking. And damn it, why couldn't I stand up--or walk?!?

"What happened, Stu?"

"Dude! You slammed your face into the TV stand on the way down! Just sit, will you?"

"Did I hit the back of my head somewhere? Or did North Korea just test something right behind me?"

(Maybe I wasn't that clever, but that's how I remember it.)

"You hit your head on the concrete there."

"Hrngh."

Self-assessment:

Overall: light-headed. Fuzzy. More than a little nauseous.

Left side of face puffy and bleeding.

Spitting blood from where my teeth chattered together. (Thank God I hadn't had my tongue between them).

Elbows: total road rash and bleeding.

Torso: Internal organs rearranged.

Possible leg abrasions.

Oh yeah, and somebody appears to have sewn a golf ball under my left elbow.

And yet, I managed to finish the day. We had to call in an extra hand because walking in straight lines was impossible, but I lifted a few more boxes. Stu swears it was a mild concussion. We'll see how it goes.

Oh yeah, about Stu--he's a big dude with a beard. He's a self-described heathen who says he subscribes to the Tao of Stu, which mostly involves a state of mind and drinking. But this big dude who would probably retch if made to hold another man's hand for a $500 bet marched me into the kitchen, twisted my arms under the sink, and poured hydrogen peroxide over my boo-boos.

"You don't have the HIV, do you?" he asked as he poured it over my bleeding, hamburger-like elbows. "No herpes, anything?"

"No," I said. "All clean." But I noticed something. He was still literally man-handling me and my wounds when he asked that question. Whatever my status (what a modern thing to have to say), he was field-dressing my wounds anyway.

That calls to mind a marketing slogan TJ suggested -- "We're not just friends, we're Truck Buddies."

The end.

No, sometimes the customer is very, very wrong...

2009-05-25T07:24:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a fun one. I'd taken an afternoon job because I just can't say "no." The problems began before I'd even gotten out of my truck.

As I backed the trailer down the long driveway, "Kumar" walked along side my window saying, "I do not believe this will be sufficient." (Read all his dialogue with an Indian accent). "I thought you were to bring a Peneske truck."

Peneske? Did he say that?

I got out of my truck and said "Hi, nice to meet you. No, I only bring Penske trucks to larger jobs. It's not standard."

"Your advertisement said you would bring a Peneske truck. I expected a Peneske truck."

Look, man, I don't even know what a Peneske truck IS...

Instead, I said, "I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. I don't advertise Penske trucks as standard."

Then I walked by him to the seller of the couches I was picking up and asked him to show me the way.

Of course Kumar was in the computer field. And of course he'd never exercised a day in his life. And of course he wanted to take the long way around the house instead of going up the short flight of stairs on the OTHER side that would put us right at the back of my trailer. So, to avoid six stairs and a walk of about 30 feet, we went around the house and added about a 100 feet to the walk.

Did I mention we were carrying couches? No? He dropped the heavy couch twice.

"I am disappointed you did not bring a Peneske truck," he said to me while he caught his breath.

My truck and trailer were more than sufficient. I stacked the couches in the bed, and stacked the tables in the trailer. I had about 20 cubic feet to spare. Still, it all required numerous tie-downs, and as I was strapping the sixth or so tie-down down, Kumar helpfully pointed out that the last mover he used had a Peneske truck, and that he didn't have to strap anything down. He just packed it all tightly enough that he could just load it and go. It only took that guy a few minutes.

"Well, Kumar, we have a Ford Ranger, so that's what we're going to use. Got it?"

No, he did not.

We got the couches and tables into his little apartment alright, and at the end he asked me if I would take $60 for the hour-and-a-half work I did.

"No, I don't negotiate after the deal has been made. I charge $50 per hour for just my service, and $70 per hour for two men."

Since It was an hour-and-a-half, I charged $75.

"But you didn't bring a Peneske truck like you advertised--"

Ding! And here we are at my breaking point.

"Kumar, if you can find the ad where I say I always bring a PENSKE truck, I will gladly write you a check for $15 and mail it to you. But since we made a deal for $50 per hour, you owe me $75."

I kept my voice down, but I was seething. I wondered if turning the other cheek included accepting the shaft in business deals.

"Here is $70," he said. Then he laughed.

He laughed.

His wife and kids were there, and I'm no good at confrontation when I'm pissed off, so I just let it slide. I grabbed the money from his wimpy little hand and left without so much as a goodbye. I was sure that he saw me as being in a lower caste or something. He was going to get a strongly worded e-mail later.

How lame. How impotent.

I packed everything back up into my truck, and was about to drive away when he came running out. Ah, I thought, he must feel bad, and he's bringing the $5 he owes me.

"Stop!" he said. "Can I ask you a favor? It will only take five minutes."

What. The. Eff.

He put his hand on the open passenger window of the truck. "I need to move a TV, and my wife can't lift it..." He offered a fraternal grin. Me and Kumar were in the same club, you see. We men, we understood women. Or something. At that point all I wanted to do was grab his arm that was resting on the door of my truck and just start driving.

"Here's the deal, Kumar. I do this job to feed my family. We made an agreement that you broke. In other words, you stole from my family. So, get your hands off my truck and find someone else to screw."

I'm not sure that translated, but I could tell from the look on his face that something had gone horribly wrong, but he didn't know why.

I'm still debating whether to write him an e-mail explaining how things work in the free world.

It's not the recession, it's you...

2009-05-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Found an awesome motivational post on a new blog today (new to me, like almost everything).

http://outspokenmedia.com/online-marketing/you-just-suck/

An excerpt:

Entrepreneurs are ruling this recession.

Why? Because they’re hungry and they’re motivated. That means they can’t spend their whole day getting caught in the fame game or in office politics. It means when they go to a conference or a networking event, they’re not there for the booze. They’re grabbing handfuls of business cards, talking to people, and then following up. And they don’t just say they’ll email you after the show. They really do. Actually, they email you as soon as they get home. They’re nurturing leads and finding clients and creating opportunities. They’re marketing themselves. They’re not tuning in to Oprah this afternoon to get Twitter tips from Ashton Kutcher.

In fact, there’s not even time to whine about how unfair the world is and how this recession is taking away their business. Because they’re out there finding business from places you wouldn’t have even thought to look. Or maybe you would have, if you worked as hard as they do. That’s the thing, people don’t want to work. They want a job and a paycheck. And those cushy jobs with those cushy paychecks are the first to go. Because really all those people are doing is taking up space. So it’s not so much that the recession came around and took your job, it’s that you allowed yourself to become expendable.

About that marketing business...

2009-05-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

So, the other day I wrote a cryptic little note on my Facebook page. It said something like "I kicked off JolmaCom with my first client today!" What on earth do I mean? I will tell you...

Over the last year and a half or more, I've had to market the moving business with almost no money to do so. When you're broke, you don't buy radio spots. Or TV. Hell, buying ad space in a cash-strapped newspaper is prohibitively expensive. So, I had to figure out alternative methods of promoting MyTruckBuddy.com.

Do you know how many low-cost ways there are to promote a small business? How many free ways? Hundreds. And if you're a little creative, you can modify those basic things thousands of other ways. Want to move your Website up in the rankings? Easy (relatively speaking). There's no one, single silver bullet, and there's no super secret cyber lever you pull, but with a patchwork of efforts, you can get your site noticed fairly easily.

A lot of it is just common sense. For example, how you answer the phone can determine whether you get a new client. Some are more high-tech: weaving keywords into the copy on your website.

Anyway, after doing this for awhile, I realized that I was developing marketable skills. Why not teach other small businesses (not moving businesses, obviously, heh) for a small fee? (Small for now, that is). If I -- someone with almost no technical skills -- can get a website up and running, optimize it for search engines, and implement a bunch of online and offline marketing strategies, then anyone can do it. Like everything else, though, a lot of small businesses just don't know where to start.

I'm not doing anything new or different here. All the information is out there, and a lot of it is just pure crap. I think small businesses would love it if someone could just step in and say "do this, do this, and do this."

A couple of months ago I visited the DC Home & Garden Show. I pushed out of my comfort zone and got a little "schmoozy," walking away with three new clients for a business I hadn't even created yet. After I sent my first newsletter, I got three or four more. I was right -- small businesses, especially businesses with crappy websites they made in 1998 with an old version of FrontPage, are desperate to make their marketing dollars stretch farther.

Last week I had an initial meeting with one of my clients. She's a moving customer of mine, and she runs a hair salon here in Old Town. She wanted to 1) develop a newsletter marketing system, and 2) optimize her website for search engines. So, I did some research, threw together some ideas, and showed her some options on her work computer. This is what she wrote about an hour after we met:

I just want to tell you I am so impressed with you!! you gave so much of your time and did so much research for us without a commitment !! you will go very far with this excellent customer service skill of yours.

I am looking forward to doing buisiness with you!!

I also wanted to explain that I am willing to spend a lot more each month once I see results coming in. One hair cut is 65.00 so doing the math the more business we get the more we can spend , the more you can make!!

I wish we had you here on staff!

Of course, now I'm scared poopless. I HAVE TO DELIVER.

No problem, though. I'm not trying to do anything fancy. All I need to do is what I've been doing for my own business, right?

The pay for this first gig won't be much, but it's a welcome start. I have about six more people ready to go right now, and that means I have a ton of things to do. For example, I'm supposed to be writing a proposal for the above client. What the hell am I blogging for?

When physics attacks...(Updated)

2009-05-02T14:56:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was fun. The picture below shows a 12' high truck I rented for my big job of the day. It's positioned right behind a 12' high beam that's supposed to prevent oversized trucks from entering the building.

My #1 guy, who I asked to lead that mission, drove the truck in with no problem, apparently, but when he tried to reposition and back out, suddenly the truck was about an inch too high. I don't get it either, but the space/time continuum has been a real bitch lately. The day before, I had to move several items down a long, narrow alleyway between two rowhouses. I'm not an exceptionally large person, and the two brick walls nearly touched my shoulders when I stood in the center of the alley. My customer swore that her couch and several other items had made it through before. We tried and tried, but no angle would get some of the things (like the couch) down the alley.

So, yeah.

Anyway, we tried a bunch of things, up to and including strapping a one-ton garbage receptacle onto the lift gate. Uh uh. In the end, Penske sent a technician out and deflated the tires. That still wasn't enough. But, the technician was able to jump up and down on the back so that we were able to just squeeze it through.

Fun times...

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

What recession?

2009-04-24T13:12:00.003-07:00

Phone ringing off hook. Muscles singing with blood. Money...flowing. Life--good.

What recession?

2009-04-24T13:12:00.001-07:00

Why I won't be using Twitter for marketing...

2009-04-14T06:41:00.001-07:00

It reflects my feelings on Twitter perfectly. Do you twitterstand?

(Via Steph's Facebook page).

Big Moves...

2009-04-11T05:34:00.001-07:00

Moving with the big truck today. Everyone stay off the roads!

First newsletter--out!

2009-04-08T08:40:00.001-07:00

Last night I sent my first newsletter to a list of about 190 people. It should have been much more because my e-mail list is up around 260.

Sigh...one more thing for The List.

If anyone got it, please feel free to tell me what you think of it, even if your first response is "Don't send me anymore spam, you free market capitalist spamming pig!" Seriously--I want to know what you think.

If you're reading this and want to get the newsletter, which is full of useful info and even a way to make some cash on the side (with no obligation on your part), can sign up on the home page. It's on the right-hand side "below the fold," as they say. Here's the link: MyTruckBuddy.com.

Get yer boxes here!

2009-04-01T19:56:00.001-07:00

Guess what--MyTruckBuddy.com now offers boxes delivered right to your door. No more dumpster diving, spamming your friends, or using crushed up old boxes from five years ago that saw their first action five years before that.

Just think about it--new, crisp, strong boxes. Mmmm... They're strong, they're reliable -- just like your Truck Buddy.

;-)

Okay, enough cheese. Bottom line? The prices are good, they're delivered right to your door, and you'll be helping me to keep my son diapered and fed. (I get a small percentage of the sale, and it's VERY small).

Go here to get your boxes now!

48 moves in March

2009-04-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

That's a new record.

The amount of money I made is also a new record, but for modesty's sake, I won't brag about it here. Besides, Steph makes more on one deal than I do in a month (if I'm guessing her take-home right), so seriously, there's no reason to brag here.

I have a roster of about 12 guys and -- get this -- one girl. She's an intern at a nearby organization. In fact, I got three interns from that organization. I have no idea why I'm paying them what I do. After all, they get to see a free market capitalism experiment up close and personal.

One of my guys--my main guy, in fact--just got a truck so he can be my first franchisee.

Another guy I had to get off of Craigslist is seriously considering getting a truck this weekend. I've worked with him twice, and even though he's a big Union guy (I'll have to keep an eye on him), I like his entrepreneurial spirit. His eyes lit up both times someone stopped us on the street while we were working to ask if we had any cards.

I have a good system in place for generating leads, scheduling, executing moves, pricing, processing payments, and processing contact info.

I've learned Web design.

I'm about to launch my newsletter, and I have several small businesses to feature.

And you know what? I'm tired.

I love what I do, but I'm tired. I'm at the point I've been working toward for a year and a half--the "too much business" stage. My marketing efforts are beginning to pay off, and I've only begun to implement them. And yet, it's almost more than I can manage by myself. This is a very good thing, but it means that long-worked-for time has arrived: I have to expand. Even with 48 moves, it's barely enough to support my family. A slight price increase will help, but I can't rely on that alone. I need to spread the work around.

One problem: I'm woefully ill-prepared. It's not a roadblock, though. I just need to figure it out like I've been figuring everything else out all this time.

As I write this, I have these work-related injuries:

* A bruised back from where I wedged myself into a doorway with a box. (Kind of hilarious, but painful too...

* A sliced calf from where I didn't clear the trailer when I stepped over it--while holding a couch.

* A bruised torso of indeterminate origin.

* A stomach problem that feels like an ulcer.

* Miscellaneous hand-scrapes, cuts and bruises from various things.

And yet, I'm very, very happy. I don't think I'll ever have to work for anyone else ever again. I now realize how easy it is to create wealth on your own.

I knew that doing this would never pay all the bills, and that's why I've been working on Project B, or what I'm loosely calling my "Small business marketing plans." At first it just involved copywriting. But I quickly realized that small businesses need Search Engine Optimization, a complement of communication devices like newsletters, special reports and social networking updates. And I'm getting clients like crazy (relatively speaking).

I helped a repeat customer move and re-move her stuff from the Home & Garden Show in D.C. a few weeks ago. As an experiment (because I had the time) I wandered the cavernous convention hall and stopped at the booths of various customers.

"How's your Website working for you?" I'd ask. Most said "Fine," and didn't want to pursue my obvious pitching. But a few were almost begging for marketing help. One guy liked my off-the-cuff suggestions so much he repeatedly asked for more consultation. (He needed my help, too. I can't disclose the domain name for his site, but it had the word "fart" in it so prominently that nobody could miss it. Totally by accident, too.) Another is interested in how I can help her sales copy.

A customer of mine is going to use my services to market her hair salon.

And there are more...

Who knows where all this will lead, but I'm telling you, if you want something, it's there for the taking. Just go and do it. DO IT. "Waiting for your ship to come in" is for losers. Building your own damn fleet IS possible, and easier than you think once you get started.

Thank you, God, for teaching me the right things at the right time in this, what has turned out to be the right place.

Department of "Labor?"

2009-03-31T06:17:00.001-07:00

Just took a load to the Department of Labor. Lots of guys just sitting around at the loading dock. Lol.

Wow

2009-03-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've done 37 moves this month. 37. Thirty-seven.

That's a lot of moves.

In other news, I've lost 20 pounds since December.

Irony

2009-03-18T18:41:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday I had to return the pants my buddy left in my truck.

Hmm...that came out wrong. Let me explain...

One of my TRUCK BUDDIES who HELPS ME WITH LARGER PROJECTS left his CHANGE OF CLOTHES in my truck. I'm referring to Stu, whose picture and bio you may now view on the MyTruckBuddy.com staff page. Stu works for the organization I worked for until recently. Despite his traitorous allegiance to said organization, from which I was laid off with about a dozen others, I still value him as a trusted partner and buddy.

Anyway, he left his work clothes in my truck, so I kindly offered to bring them by the old office.

The receptionist let me in without much more than a glance. (So much for security--I'm, as Limbaugh says, a harmless, lovable little fuzzball. But I am a former employee who was laid off with no more than five minutes of notice). I ran up there, met Stu in his office, and dropped off his clothes. We "duded it up" for a minute, as my wife says, and I headed back toward the front door. That's when I heard the voice of the organization's president.

I paused. This guy is like many men who've built an organization up from nothing--in his case, with just a rented closet of an office and a rented computer and VCR. Now it's a $12 million dollar organization. He's brusque, intimidating, no-nonsense, and the object of scorn for quite a few people in Washington on the other side of the political fence. In other words, a kind of guy I can respect, but one who it's no fun to work for. While in his employ I was a writer. Not a particularly good writer, but not particularly bad, either. But this man is a relation to one of Washington's celebrated literati, a man known and respected for his mastery of the English language. In fact, my former boss studied under that giant. Once, my boss called me into his office to rip something I wrote to shreds. He did, however, leave one paragraph which he said was "quite good."

Anyway, I heard this man's voice and I paused. But then I caught myself and thought "What the hell am I nervous about? What's he going to do now...fire me?"

So, I just walked around the corner into his view, said "Howdy," and started down the stairs. He and a vice president were joking around, and as I passed by he yelled down the stairwell, "Anybody who gets me a bailout gets a bonus!"

To the man I could barely ever muster a few feeble words while looking at my feet, I said, "I don't think the government gives bailouts to organizations like this!" (That would have been funnier if I could elaborate on the character of the organization).

He was somewhat confused about how or why I was in the building, but I don't think he recognized me. "I'll give you a bonus if you get me a bailout!"

Funny. "I'd rather have a salary, if it's all the same to you," I said.

He snickered and I went down the stairs.

Hey, I thought it was funny.

Adventures in marketing

2009-03-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

The other day we had one of those "snow storms" that shuts down the city. I didn't have any moves scheduled that day, so I figured the conditions would be perfect to try out a marketing idea I had.

It was really simple--I'd just show up somewhere with some cookies and hot chocolate, give them out for free, and hand out some cards.

Well, I picked the big hill at the Masonic temple for the location. In retrospect, I should have realized it might not have been optimal. Yes, I did hand out some cards, and that was good, but the vast majority of the cookies and hot chocolate I gave out went to kids. And, as we all know, kids are notoriously bad tippers--if they have any money to pay for goods and services in the first place.

Next time--a better, more adult location. Not to mention that it's probably never a good idea to park your vehicle where kids congregate to hand out treats.

Oy.

Anyway, here are some pics of that frigid day.

Introducing the MTB Total Body Stimulus Plan!

2009-03-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

This morning a regular customer of mine (she runs a European linens business) looked me up and down and said, "You've lost weight."

Hmm...

Yes, I suppose I have. None of my pants seem to fit anymore, and when I cinch up my belt, it scrunches them up so as to look like a denim bag wrapped around my waist. On the plus side, I've got pretty good biceps and pecs for a naturally small guy. I may not look like much, muscle-wise, but I assure you, there's something there. If you doubt it, I'll crush your head with my pecs of destruction.

Anyway, that got me thinking. I probably have 2-3 entrepreneurial ideas every day, but I never have the time to act on them. THIS one is actionable right now, though.

Here it is--it's very simple.

Want to lose weight? Come work for me. I'll put you on a weight-loss regimen that'll burn fat, build muscle, and tone you. Best of all, it's ALL NATURAL. Exercises include:

The armoire lift.
The sleeper sofa shuffle.
The entertainment center heft.
And many more...

Want to burn fat? I'll get you to do the "long haul." This basically means carrying an item 100 yards or more. Some movers charge extra for this, it's so effective.

Looking for a full body workout? I'll put you on the advanced program--The armoire lift, down stairs, and walk it 50 yards or more.

I guarantee that at the end of my program, you'll look great, feel great, and will no longer have to put up with meaty jocks kicking sand in your face at the beach, as is my understanding of such things.

You get all this for the low-low price of $40 per hour. You show up to the job site and we'll get you started right away.

Hurry up and call. Space in the MTB Total Body Stimulus Plan is limited!

Lol @ "Survival jobs"

2009-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

I just heard a news item talking about "survival jobs." It was short, but I got the point--lots of people are taking jobs to survive. Laid-off executives are holding their chins high and getting their hands dirty for the first time in years. They're "proud of the work they do," and probably feel close to the "common man."

All I can say is "welcome to the club." Here's a Budweiser for you. None of that light crap. And I'm sorry, but we don't serve Manhattans here. Lol

Happy Birthday, son!

2009-03-03T20:46:00.001-08:00

Already one year old today. Wow.

Truck-related humor

2009-02-27T12:54:00.001-08:00

My new logo:

If you can't beat 'em...

2009-02-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

(Repost because the formatting was all screwed up, and I think it was this post.)

I must be doing something right--I've seen an incredible uptick of plagiarism and outright theft of my ads on Craigslist. The copy isn't particularly stunning in most cases. Here's a snippet of mine I've been seeing around CL:

• Low, flat rates that won’t break the bank.
• Fast, free estimates and no surprise or hidden fees.
• Door-to-door service so you don’t have to pick up a truck.
• Prompt, professional manpower – people you can trust who show up on time

In the end, it's no big deal, but I hate the fact that the poseurs who can't even write their own ads dilute the truth by stealing from me. Got that WASEEM? I will flag you with fire all across the tubes.

Equally irksome is when they steal images from my Website. For example, I've seen this one around:

Of course, I don't have any legal recourse because, well, I stole it from somewhere too. Heh. Life in the jungle.

I've been thinking for awhile that I might get into CL advertising for any number of businesses. CL isn't exactly the Louvre, and I have taught myself a pretty good graphic design skillset, so why not? I could always do it on the side. I could even embed links to my site into images I create for my competitors.

I'm sure this is how an organized crime ring gets started...

A DC moment...

2009-02-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

On a related note, the customer I had before these folks was a writer for National Review online. It was pretty cool, and when I half-jokingly asked if they were looking for grantwriters, he said that they might be. I got his card and he told me to send my resume.

I think I'd rather pluck cats at a Chinese restaurant than be a grantwriter again, but hey, it's National Review. Who knows...

(I'm rally outing myself today, aren't I? Rabid Catholic AND a conservative? I probably just lost half my audience, bringing it down to roughly four people...)

City people vs. regular people

2009-02-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I helped my Jew friend. It's okay to call him that because we have a little "thing." We worked together at my last job, and he, being a, in his words, "hard agnostic libertarian self-hating Jew," gets some kind of perverse pleasure antagonizing me by saying things like "The Catholic Church has always been against free and open intellectual inquiry."

You can imagine how well I, as a hardcore Catholic, take that.

Even worse, though, is how he would sometimes throw his pro-"choice" stance in my face. Once during a mailing (where all the parameciums at the organization gather in a conference room to stamp, stuff and lick envelopes) he denied the fetus had rights under the constitution. This was at the end of long string of similar conversations, and I blew up (in a friendly way) and told him, in front of a room full of people, that it was perverse for a JEW to be dehumanizing a class of people especially while there were still living Holocaust survivors.

And yet, we've developed the beginning of a friendship. Heh. Go fig.

Anyway, last night he needed my services to help him move into a new den of iniquity with his girlfriend, an even MORE virulently atheist libertarian feminist. (They both worship Ron Paul, by the way. Whoever said politics makes strange bedfellows was right on.)

When we got to her place, she showed me an area of concern at the front door. It didn't open all the way, and she was worried that we wouldn't be able to get the somewhat heavy dresser from her room through it. This girl talks a mile a minute, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.

"See, it only opens this far [about halfway] and stops. There's a bump in the floor. I think we'll have to take the dresser apart but I don't want to do you think weshouldtakethedrawersoutfirstRONPAULRULESIHATEABORTIONBUTI'MPRO-CHOICE!"

That's basically how the whole move went. They were fun kids.

While she was talking, I put took my gloves off and set them aside. The door had a big decorative handle on it, so I just bent down a little bit, lifted up, and opened the door. It opened all the way nearly effortlessly.

"OMG How did you do that?!? [Jew]! Come here! Chris fixed the door! So THAT'S how they got the couches in here. I had no idea!"

I had to pretend to get something from my truck I was laughing so hard.

City people. They'll keep me in business as long as there are cities.

Nuttin' up...

2009-02-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

Well, that day has arrived. What day? The day when I either crawl into a hole with my Star Wars action figures and cry, or the day I stand tall, open the door, and rip off the wolf's head. I choose the latter.

This month we'll spend the last of our savings. My wife does an admirable job of keeping track of the finances, and she tells me only what I need to know. This morning, when I told her I needed to buy a $50 laser printer I found on Craigslist--a pretty good deal, I discovered, after I checked out some reviews--she turned paler than usual and told me the money just wasn't there. In fact, I need to transfer all the cash in the business account to the personal account.

Heh. And here we are.

So, that nice cushion we had is now gone. The only money coming in is whatever I can kill and drag home.

I admit, I was more than a little...ah...anxious at the news. Thankfully I was taking little Joe to morning Mass, so I had a little bit of spiritual refreshment to face the new reality. And afterward, while I sat in the chaos that is my workspace, one thought kept running through my head: We're not going to make it...we're not going to make it...we're not going to make it...

But EFF that. If we're going down, it's going to be spectacular. I mean, telling the credit card companies where that our new number is 555-PISS-OFF. It means non Nancy-ing around my prices anymore. (I can only take so many "Wow, your prices are really amazing!" before I get the hint.) It means bombarding the Internetz with my ads.

It's not that I've exactly been sitting around popping Bon Bons and catching up on Jerry Springer. Quite the contrary--I have to force myself to take sanity breaks, and those have the effect of stressing me out because I HAVE A THOUSAND THINGS TO DO TODAY OR WE ALL DIE! But now it's time. Time to get my empire on.

Today's goals:

Get at least ten links to my site.
Write a video greeting for the home page.
Finish the Google Webmaster stuff (this is Google's helpful stuff to optimize your site).
Write at least one new kick-ass Craigslist ad.

There's a ton more that I need to get to, and a thousand little details about my site that need improvement, but for now that's it.

Alright, gotta run. I've got an empire to build.

The skinny on Dan Kennedy

2009-02-20T13:21:00.000-08:00

For my Jimmy buddies...

Dan Kennedy is one of those gurus. I declined to put sneer quotes around "gurus" because he seems to be the real deal. By that I mean that the things he teaches seem to work. You know--people who implement them get actual results. I met a few of them at yesterday's inaugural Glazer-Kennedy Virginia chapter meeting. One woman started doing the things he suggests in September and has apparently doubled business.

What does he teach? No-frills, no-nonsense marketing. In fact, if you check out any of his two dozen (or so) books, they all seem to be called the same thing: "The No B.S., Ultimate, No Holds BArred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide to Whatever." I've read his "No B.S." direct marketing and wealth attraction books and got a ton of ideas from them. The information in them is straightforward and common sense. But there's so much glitz and flash to a lot of marketing these days--big marketing, anyway--that at first these principles seem counter-intuitive. For example, a long-form sales letter with a very predictable pattern might seem like a waste of time and effort--particularly if you're writing it--but hey, it works.

(Personally, I detest such letters and skip to the bottom to get to the price, but like I said, it works. We used the exact same techniques at my former job in our direct mail campaigns).

Now, the catch--it's definitely a religion, my friends. At the ground level, your basic membership gets you a $50 per month newsletter that gives you a taste of this or that advice packed between acres worth of ads for upcoming conferences and membership upgrades. You can end up spending thousands of dollars per month just to get into the various mastermind groups and conferences.

I've heard that you can pretty much get all the same information from his books, and that after a year, the newsletter just recycles the old stuff. However, the books themselves (at least the two I've read) are about half Dan Kennedy, and half personal testimonies of his business partners and studets. I wouldn't say that the second half is useless--far from it, actually--but when you buy a book by somebody, you want ALL of it to be written by the people in the byline.

All-in-all, I can recommend his stuff with a caveat that should be common sense--there's no magic "Easy Button." He doesn't sell his stuff as a silver bullet, I should note, but he sells in an industry that at least heavily implies there is. As best as I can tell, the real benefit of higher membership isn't some new secret gnostic wisdom, but access to the real users and winners of DK's marketing principles. That might be worth it, I would think, if you have a hard time finding like-minded successful people.

One note about yesterday's meeting--there was a familiar group there. Some new faces, but about half were people I've seen at various REI meetings. I got the impression that they were still looking for that silver bullet, that four-leaf clover, etc. It was a little bit sad, to tell you the truth. On the other hand, it was refreshing to meet a few fellow entrepreneurs who, in their words, "wouldn't know we were in a recession if they didn't read the papers."

Morning Goals 2.19.09

2009-02-19T03:36:00.000-08:00

Today I go to a "networking event." This is rare for me, but it's a group of people (disciples) of Dan Kennedy, the direct marketing guru. As someone using his principles somewhat effectively, I can say that they work, and I'm looking forward to meeting with a bunch of other small business owners.

Goal I: Don't come off as a cocky jackass.
Goal II: Come back with at least one new marketing idea. (This will be a challenge because I think I've written them all down by now.
Goal III: Don't fall asleep on the drive there.

Two moves per day...

2009-02-17T05:03:00.000-08:00

We're getting close.

My Outlook task list contains about 80 must-do items. Twenty of those are my remaining Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tasks. The rest are things like "Redo banners and logos" (they all say "MyTruckBUD" instead of "Buddy.") Or, "Add online payment options." Etc.

The goal is to get at least two $150 moves per day. Actually, no, that's not the goal. The goal is to make about $320 per day. It can be one move, or it can be five. But two is the most realistic, comfortable amount. Why $320? Because that's what it's going to take to make $100,000 per year with about four Sundays off per 30-day month. Obviously this is a rough goal, but it's a goal.

I've hesitated to commit any big, bold goals to paper until now because I haven't been sure I could do it. However, lately the business has been rolling in due to both my efforts, and the efforts of a mysterious Indian marketer. More on him later.

The other day I deposited a stack of twenties about as high as the knuckle on my middle finger to its tip. I was tempted to throw it on the floor and roll around in it. In fact, now that I'm thinking of it, I wish I had. I can just feel those dirty, gritty twenties all over my skin...

Er...sorry.

Anyway, that's what happens with basic guerrilla marketing and good customer service. I've only implemented a fraction of the things I want to (and should). Now that I'm in the home stretch of completing my "wish list," I think I'm about to push this thing through. What comes next is anyone's guess, but grossing $100,000 is a very realistic goal.

Of course, I hear that you're taxed especially hard as a business owner. 'Cause, you know, business owners are filthy rich, rolling around in stacks of twenties all the time. They make their underpaid, illegal alien housemaids they don't pay taxes on clean it all up. And we beat the crap out of them if even one twenty dollar bill is missing.

Two moves per day ought to get me there. And then Conchita better walk the line.

Random notes

2009-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

* Anyone catch that Obamoid college student at the town hall meeting yesterday? He's been working in a McDonalds for the last four years and can't find a new job--so he says. He also asked if Obama was going to increase his benefits. They haven't changed in four years, so...

Oh yeah, and he's majoring in communications. He probably should plan on a long career at McDonalds.

* Got my permanent (as opposed to my temporary) concealed carry permit today. The second news item I heard this morning was that Virginia gun dealers have a shortage of ammo.

Sigh...

* On the first news item I saw this morning, "Morning Joe," Sen. Boxer was blabbering about how the stimulus package will work and the Republicans are big meanies for threatening a filibuster. She said something like "And you, Joe, and the 'C...B...O...'," (she emphasized it with air quotes) "say it won't work..."

Joe Scarborough's look was priceless. I'm sure he was sorting through the things he could say on live TV, but he finally settled with "That's the Congressional Budget Office, Sen. Boxer," he said. I literally LOL'd. My own little Joe, who I was feeding graham crackers at the time, laughed along with me.

* Just got a call from Grace. She was working out in the living room with her exercise ball and a couple of 7lb barbells. She got up to get a drink of water or something, and when she came back one of the barbells was gone. She looked all over thinking Joe had rolled it under a couch or something.

It was nowhere, so she expanded the search to the bedroom, thinking he must have rolled it really far away. He did more than that, though--it was up on top of the hutch in the bedroom.

This is amazing, because that thing is almost half of his weight. He hefted that thing a good thirty feet away and lifted it to about his chest level. WHY he did it is anyone's guess, but here's my theory: I had to pry him off of me when I left this morning. As soon as he saw me getting my stuff together, he gave me the sad "bye-bye" wave. But when I actually picked up my laptop bag to leave, he velcroed himself to my leg. It took three tries and one book distraction to escape, but I joked on the way out "We'll put you to work in the company business soon enough, little man."

Joe, my little goal-oriented toddler, is already working out to meet the minimum company standards...

Good times...

Barack Roll

2009-02-10T07:27:00.001-08:00

In case you've been wondering where I've been...

2009-02-07T14:09:00.001-08:00

I've been making piles of petty cash (let's keep it in perspective here...) I've also been redoing the company Web site. It's now www.MyTruckBudDY.com. (There's a DY at the end.) Why redo the site? Because while my previous site was more than adequate for basic one-way communication, I was quickly learning that it would take a lot of patch-work to bring it up to today's Web 2.0 standards. Refer-a-friend scripts, e-mail campaigns, service records, etc. I can do all this and a thousand more things I'll never do with the new site.

How?

GoodBarry.com. Definitely check it out. It's more than you'll ever need to put up a Web-based business.

I can haz royalties now, GoodBarry?

And could you paint my house too?

2009-02-02T15:15:00.001-08:00

Lol, some people. A lady wanted to pay me $19 to transport a 66 lb mirror 20 miles. She acted shocked and even laughed as though it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.

That's fairly rare, and I guess they find people in their price range, but in this biz we call those movers 'hungry'.

Hittin' it hard...

2009-02-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

Ah, Monday. Blessed Monday. I get to work again...

What a difference working for yourself makes. The last few years passed by in a comfortable gray haze. I imagine that Purgatory will be something like writing proposals for a living, with the possibility of more flames. You get up, cry in the shower for a little bit, watch more hair wash down the drain, get dressed, and go sit in your office chair. Then you cry some more.

What--I'm the only crier? Whatever. Liars.

Anyway, by 5:45 this morning I was already mnemonically memorizing my task list for the day. (I hate that certain corporatisms still infect my vocabulary. I say things like "task list" and "prioritize" and "action items.") My list got to about five items before I forced myself to stop.

Nonetheless, I love it. Word-of-mouth business is way, way up. Web site hits are up ten percent or so. (That will change--business comes in surges and then dies. Then I write panicky blog posts...) I have a lot of e-mail inquiries to get to, and February is starting to look like a busy month.

I may be back on the "National Expansion Plan" by May after all.

(Look for a post in the next couple of days bemoaning the lack of business. Heh).

Thank you, Mom's Resource!

2009-01-31T17:55:00.001-08:00

I got a nice link from someone at Mom's Resource. Not sure who directed her attention to me, but I'm very grateful. Do check out the site!

"Yes, this is my truck, and no, I won't help you move."

2009-01-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

Some funny search strings that led to my site. I'm sure I gave someone an idea for a business...

"how to say no to people who want help moving with your truck"

"people ask me to move stuff with my truck how do i say no"

"yeah this is my truck no i won't help you move"

SEO is Voodoo

2009-01-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

This is weird. Weird and frustrating.

I've spent the last few days slowly figuring out how to optimize MyTruckBud.com for search engines. I realized that although people find their way to my site, that's practically a miracle because you can Google for delivery or moving services various ways and my site won't even show up in the first ten pages. Studies show, of course, that people stop looking after the first page.

On Friday I got home and had good/bad news for my wife. I started to tell her "This business is going to make it..." because I finally figured out how to Search Engine Optimize MyTruckBud.com, and gauging my the intel I'd gathered on my competitors, my efforts to do so are relatively unique. The "bad news" was that it would take a while for search engines to index my site or do whatever they do with their hoity-toity secret algorithms. However, just as I was beginning to tell her, someone called asking for delivery services.

"How'd you find me?" I asked.

"I just Googled 'Delivery service Alexandria,'" he said.

It looked like my efforts that afternoon had paid off much more quickly than I thought. Yay!

So, I typed the exact same search string into Google and came up with nothing.

I tried it again, and I came up on top.

Huh?

Another potential customer inquired about my services a minute ago, and I had the same conversation with her. I typed in the search string, and...nothing.

What the...?

SEO is definitely more art than science. Must do more research...

Screw it. We're going to Key West.

2009-01-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

We have friends getting married in late May, and they've chosen a destination wedding in Key West. At first I was disappointed--I really like these friends even if distance and time are making them more of "acquaintances." Going to Key West is simply impossible. Airfare, hotels, the things you HAVE to do in a tropical location like snorkeling, bar hopping, jet-skiing and bar hopping would be frustratingly out of reach--you know, like a coherent argument from an otherwise intelligent-sounding Obama disciple. (You like that? It's political humor.)

But you know what? Eff it. We've saved a little money and business is picking up. I could probably make enough to cover the vacation in may alone. As the weather gets better, people get "movey." So, we're gonna book the trip. Three days in paradise, or a close approximation of it. My wife simply won't stand another Pacific Northwest vacation where 90 degrees with no humidity feels like 50 degrees to her. I haven't had a real, sit-on-your-ass vacation in...I can't even remember. Seriously. The only trips I've taken in recent years have been to my folks' place in Washington State. I love them, but sitting by their pool while the hay baler makes sweep after sweep just wreaks havoc on my allergies.

So, Key West here we come. Be advised, I'm only bringing a Speedo and some suntan lotion. In return I promise to shave my back.

A midnight message to my wife

2009-01-23T21:02:00.000-08:00

Thank you, honey, as you take another night shift to help our little enterprise stay afloat. Granted, we could have thought this through a little better, but I sincerely appreciate your work and sacrifice. Just know that tonight, when little Joseph stirs and begs to come to our bed, as he's kicking me in the face, I'm loving you.

Yours,
C.

Toss me a link?--clarification!

2009-01-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

I'm SEO'ing my site this week (uh...what day is it...?). As most of you probably know because of your own entrepreneurial efforts, linkage is important. So, if you have a blog or a Web site you can link to mine, I'd appreciate it. And of course I'd be happy to reciprocate with the same.

Best,
Chris

CLARIFICATION: Actually, I meant to ask for a link to my moving site, MyTruckBud.com. THAT'S the one I need people to find!

Dispatches from the Fortress of Solitude

2009-01-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

Is anyone there? Please, anyone? I need help. I've holed myself up in the bathroom while the Beast sleeps. My wife is sleeping because she took a job doing the midnight shift at the front desk of our apartment building. She does this on the weekends--Saturday and Sunday morning--and has to catch up on sleep for the rest of the day. That leaves me on babysitting duties the whole day, and I have work to do.

Please, somebody help me. He'll wake at any moment. Any sound could set him off. A dog has been barking in a nearby apartment since eight o'clock. Someone is playing hip-hop music. My situation is PRECARIOUS! I have dozens of e-mails to catch up on. I'm starving. I haven't showered. And this is the first time in 48 hours that I've been able to go to the bathroom. So, I'm multi-tasking.

He's sweet, I know. He's a very good boy. But he also likes to whack his head into things, and has a deadly affinity for light sockets. And even if the Boy doesn't kill me, the Mother will. While I merely try to keep our son alive, the house descends into a minefield of blocks, singing bear toys and Tupperware. If she wakes before I can clean it, she'll have my...hands.

Oh no! I heard a sound. Something down the hallway is stirring. Wait--is the bathroom door locked? Oh no! And my pants are still down! Help! No! You can't come in! Get out of that! Noooo!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T10:11:00.001-08:00

It's a good thing I didn't resolve to avoid procrastination, because my first substantial post of the new year shows up a week into it! Oy.

Quick recap of 2008:

The best thing: the birth of my son, Joseph Gordon. We were worried about a difficult pregnancy, but Grace sailed through relatively comfortably, and except for some inconvenient umbilical-cord-around-the-neck-necessitating-a-C-section stuff, he came out a healthy, happy little boy. After they wiped the slime off of him, of course. And after the goo they put INTO his eyes melted away.

As I write this, Joe is ten months old and scooting around the house like half a crab (4 legs). He's about to bypass walking and go right to running. His first word...pause here to relish the thought...was "Dada." Well, to be honest, it's actually "dadadadadada..." Close enough. He looks at me when he says it. Oh, and he can do a little sign language, too--he knows how to ask for milk.

His favorite music seems to be either classical, Gregorian chant or Joni Mitchell. That's my boy.

My business, MyTruckBud.com. This was a total surprise. I never set out to create an alternative "micro moving" business, but people seem to need it, and there's some real potential here. In late 2006 I put some ads on Craigslist for hauling and moving services, and I got a huge response. It's a bit dead right now (more on that later), however I expect that to change PDQ.

Two year wedding anniversary. When we got married in late '06, we both wondered if we had made the right decision. From my perspective, my wife must have had some princess in her background. She was annoyingly, claustrophobically neat, and couldn't stand my music. From her perspective, I was a slob, probably lazy, and an emotional flake. Two years and some months later, I'm neater, she's more laid-back, we like the same music, and we both appreciate the speed with which I cave on most matters. (Hey, it's just easier...)

;-)

Seriously though, life is good on that front. I had no idea I could love someone so much, and could give so much of myself. And that's a two-way street. I think it's often said that "marriage is 50-50." That's only half right. Marriage is 100-100. Grace and I give each other everything we have, and it makes life just right.

Getting laid off. This is, of course, related to the business. I want to say that getting laid off from my day job at the non-profit signaled the end of all my W-2 jobs, but we'll just see about that. If January doesn't see a significant rise in revenue through MTB, I'll have to finally get something to pay the bills, or at least half of them. (Health care would be nice too.) Nonetheless, I have yet to worry about the "unemployment" situation. I see nothing but opportunity here and I plan to exploit all of it.

Resolutions for 2009?

I've never been good about resolutions (or goals, for that matter). I'd usually forget what I resolved to do or not do within a week. Resolutions were wishes, at best. Goals? Lol. Goals were for losers.

Having now witnessed the ascension of a number of losers my age or younger to great success, I'm willing to reassess my impression. As it turns out, goals, especially when they're written down, tend to produce results. Who knew? Thank you, 2008, for kicking my ass and explaining "Life 101" to me.

So what are my resolutions and GOALS? Fresh from the top of my head, here are a few:

1. Prove the MTB concept.
Just before I got canned, I laid out a plan to expand MTB nationally by May. That's not off the table, but my plan, while ambitious, was FANTASTICALLY optimistic. I might as well have thrown in a cure for AIDS and the development of the warp drive, too. There were numerous reasons for this, but the biggest problem was lack of clarity of the end product. What would these "Truck Buddies" be doing? Why would they stick with MTB.com? My answer: because it would be a profitable, proven system. One problem: I hadn't proven the system yet.

Fortunately, getting laid off brought this into sharp focus. That's why I'm working my butt off to make this thing a relatively easy money making machine. It's within reach. I can see what that scenario looks like. I just need to make it happen. More on that in my next post, but right now that's my #1 short-term goal.

2. Replicate the MTB concept nationally.
Whether this is a full-time career or just something I do on the side while toiling at some W-2 job, this business will have branches in every major urban area of the country by the end of 2009.

3. Establish a freelance career.
I've got the copywriting skills, even if I don't display them here. (I've never been able to settle into blog writing. I compose fast, edit...rarely...and often don't have a point other than to keep the blog alive. If I get feedback, I'm inspired for a bit, but basically I feel like I'm talking to a void about nothing. Heh.) I'm up to my eyeballs in copywriting and Internet marketing books, and as it turns out, I love it. If I can get paid a few thousand bucks or so per month for writing some sales pages, letters, e-mails or whatever, I'm set. It's not my DREAM, but why let the skillz go to waste?

4. Begin publishing fiction.
I'll probably start writing some fiction on my other blog in addition to sending it to a few of the other fiction-publishing blogs out there. I don't expect to get rich...ever...as a writer but it's necessary for some reason. As someone once said, "It's not like you don't have a choice--you either write or you die." For some reason I can't explain (some writer, I know), I simply must continue to think of writing as my vocation. People tell me to--people who write much better than me. So, there it is.

More soon. Until then, my handful of faithful readers, (Jimmy, Jim, Steph, honey), Happy New Year! As Steph said, (on her Facebook page, I think), 2009 is going to be my bitch. I've slept through 34 years of my life, I'm about to turn 35 (watch for drunken live-blogging on the 31st, as well as many more parenthetical statements), and I'm sick of it. Here I come, 2009. I'm cocked, locked, and ready to be adequate!

Still here...

2009-01-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

Stuff coming soon. I have a ton to write about. Just no time to do it. Who would have thought that unemployment could make a guy so busy?

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T07:38:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas to all!

Truckin'...

2008-12-15T07:33:00.000-08:00

Last week was hell, but here's the odd thing--I rather enjoyed it. I may have to talk to my priest about this...

The situation: I was laid off from my job, and the next day my wife and son came down with a nasty cold. It was harder on her because my son, Joseph, didn't get the memo that colds justify long, lazy days in bed being served hot soup and tea. That was Grace's plan. Joseph, however, had other plans. He pretty much kept up the normal Official Baby Business of crawling, pooping, eating (but not much, resulting in thousands of dollars of wasted formula), getting into cabinets, trying out some crazy new climbing skills, bonking his head which is magnetically attracted to the hardwood floors, and incessantly trying to stick his fingers into light sockets, the dishwasher, and the poky parts of my moving equipment. The only thing that really changed in his routine is the added activity of smearing the snot flow from his nose all over his face. This usually made him very, very mad. Given that he's the fastest crawler I've ever seen and the mucus membrane covering his entire upper body, I've been calling him "the Snot Rocket."

So, in addition to hunting down new business, I was chief executive officer in charge of TLC. I think they're out of the woods now, but last night my body simply shut down. The Snot Rocket went down at 7:30, and Grace came into the living room and said "I'm not too proud to go to bed at 7:30." Since my head was rolling around on my shoulders like a bowling ball tethered to the top of an ant hill, I concurred and we hit the sack.

We all slept for 11 1/2 hours.

Now it's Monday morning, one week since my unceremonious booting, and it's back to work.

And business is good! I've got a good amount of cash to deposit today, and I've got a few jobs lined up this week. I need to get about three more $100 moves to meet the weekly goal, but I'm confident it can happen. If not, well, we'll just have to figure something out.

Still, there have been a number of miracles, or at least signs that things are going to be alright. For one, a generous anonymous donor at my other blog offered $100 to help. My pride stings at that, but since I'm in charge of two other people's well-being, it's time to get humble.

Another "sign:" Last night I delivered a table to someone referred by a friend. The buyer is a commercial lender and we talked a little bit of business. He may be able to help me out if/when I seek some start-up money.

Overall business has increased independent of the desperate e-mails I sent friends. I'll try to blog on this later, but curiously, my Craigslist TEXT ads bring in more business than my graphic ads. It could be a statement about my failings as a graphic designer, or a statement about my writing skills. I don't know. But whatever the case, people respond to long text ads more. Go fig.

A well-plugged-in woman at our church sent me the e-mail of a guy looking for "solid Catholic guys" to fill some positions at his company. I checked out the company and get this--it's all about helping business owners find e-commerce solutions. That has been one of my biggest problems--where do you go to find off-the-shelf or custom-made software? Well, now I know. (We'll see about the job--I think it's a sales position, and I've already been laid off from a tech sales position before. Call me superstitious, but, well, just call me superstitious).

Oh, and Barbara over at www.mommylife.net wrote a fantastic post about the business. Do thou check it out. (And tell your friends!) ;-)

Finally, on an note unrelated to business, our priest and the above-mentioned woman's husband have been in cahoots about getting us some help. They've quietly approached some people in the parish about us, without using our names, and we have to pick up "something" this Wednesday. I don't know what it is, but I hope it's baby formula. The Snot Rocket is fueled by this stuff, but what he doesn't finish seems to go right through him. A $25 can is about four days' worth of fuel. So, I hope it's that...or an S.U.V. Lol. I guess I'm not THAT proud. It's kind of tough to be proud when your decade-old Nissan is about to blow the power-steering apparatus through the hood. Yeah, we've got that problem too.

There's a lot more. The blessings keep stacking up. It's so obvious that we're being cared for...from above...that even I can't chalk it up to coincidence. I don't know what's about to happen in our lives, but I know it's going to be different, it's going to be big, and it's going to be for the best. It may even be AWESOME. ;-)

I'm overwhelmed by all the friends and even strangers who've come to our aid or even pledged help. I was beginning to despair, long before our current trials, that the Catholic community was just bad at community. It turns out it's not, at least around here. There are saints among us.

Got some free radio time last night...

2008-12-11T07:39:00.001-08:00

…I think. I was sitting outside a customer’s apartment last night waiting for her to show up. The night-time radio banana crew were asking people, in light of the high unemployment these days, what the craziest thing they’d ever done to get a job.

Needless to say, I was dialing the station’s number before I even knew what it was. I knew it started with 703, so I hovered over the keypad until they gave it out.

Shockingly, I got through on the first ring. After a few minutes on hold, “Carson” cut the hold and said “107.3, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to get a job?”

I was literally in the middle of swallowing a gulp of water. Not wanting to lose the opportunity, I spit it on the floorboard of my truck (I’m glad it wasn’t whiskey) and said “I started a business!”

At least, I think that’s what I said. It all happened in about 30 seconds.

“I saw the writing on the wall about a year ago when my wife was pregnant, and started helping people with their ‘small moves.’ I got a lot of business from that, and so I built a Web site called MYTRUCKBUD.COM.”

I said this as loudly and clearly as I could.

“I was laid-off on Monday, so now I do that full-time.”

“Chile,” or “Chilly,” the female deejay, was blown away by that for some reason. “Two days ago!?!” she said.

“Yup.”

Then Carson summarized: “So, the craziest thing you ever did to get a job was to call a radio station and get a free plug for your Web site.”

We all laughed as though it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard. “What, am I that transparent?” I said. We laughed some more.

“Okay, I’ll check out your site” Carson said. Then he hung up on me.

I didn’t hear if that segment was broadcast, and I called my wife and buddy to make them listen. I never heard anything. So, who knows? I did get a record spike in traffic yesterday, but that might be due to the e-mails I’ve been sending to everyone under the sun about my predicament. We’ll see.

Big mistake...

2008-12-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Made a huge mistake today. Went to an old coffee house I used to frequent. Since then, it's lost its carpet, it blasts Bjork, the most comfortable couchy room is now dripping storage, and the big spare room upstairs is now a dump.

Wow. It's like I died and went to Harvey, Illinois.

Did I mention they're blasting Bjork?

Oh yeah--and everyone in here is some kind of late-20's or early 30's hipster either adding to their iPhone or iPod playlist, playing Warcraft, or staring mindlessly at lefty web pages.

I weep for our country.

Loving my new office...

2008-12-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's Panera Bread--the only place in Northern Virginia, apparently, that has working Wi-Fi as advertised. I've been marketing the biz like mad--writing new ads, creating new Craigslist flyers, etc.

Number of hours in this place so far? About five. Gallons of coffee consumed so far? SHUT UP! SHUT UP! I'm sorry, I LOVE YOU!!! I WANT TO LEARN THE DRUMS!

Yes! Long weekend! Reeeallly long...

2008-12-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at work there was an all-staff meeting. I knew it wasn't going to be good--all-staff meetings never are. They're for chastisements or bad news, although I do faintly recollect going to an "atta-boys" meeting once.

I also knew that the organization was in bad financial shape. A few of our donors took ferocious financial hits--one guy losing more than 60% of his wealth--and had to back out of their pledged gifts. One guy took back a million dollars. Other donors had to cancel another million in combined gifts. The result was a $2 million shortfall. Heads had to roll.

Long story short, I was laid off with about a dozen other people. It was a double-whammy surprise because even though I suspected this might happen, I expected it to happen after the new year, and even after Christmas. It was also a surprise because during the president's Talk, he said every department but Development (my department) was effected. All through his explanation, while people began to weep, I thought "This is it. I'm the lowest one on the totem pole. They're definitely going to let me go." When they didn't, and he said that all the people being laid-off were notified already, I was surprised.

I was literally in the middle of an e-mail to my wife telling her that I'd dodged the bullet when I got the call. My supervisor (the guy who caused me so much grief over the past two years) called me in to the executive V.P.'s office, and they gave me the news. Here's a small severance. We'll pay you through January 9. Good luck.

They also stressed that the layoff had nothing to do with my performance, or lack thereof. I tend to believe them because among the unhappy crowd of the newly employed from my organization were some really good people. They were producers, part of the visible front of the organization (they were on TV a lot), and are some of the top people in the business of media and politics. In a way, I'm among an illustrious bunch. Heh.

I won't go into a bunch of crap about my "feelings" here, but suffice it to say that I'm still somewhat in shock. I guess that's what it is because I'm surprisingly optimistic. This is the crucible. I have a wife and son to care for, and our break-even every month is about $4,000. That's not because of extravagant living--that's rent and bills. We can shave some off of our grocery and baby clothing budget but not much.

I'm also optimistic because last week, and through the weekend, I finally sat down and planned out what I need to do to launch the moving business nationally. I can do it for relatively little start-up money, too. If I hadn't mapped that out, I might be freaking out right now, but since I've got a very do-able game-plan, I'm confident.

I have some choices to make, though. Should I focus all my energies on starting up MyTruckBuddy.com? Should I find a job RIGHT NOW? Should I pursue some of my other entrepreneurial ideas, such as freelance copywriting? For the next few days I'll consider all my options, but I have one over-arching desire--not to work for anybody ever again. Having to get another J.O.B. will be failure for me, but if it means providing for my family, I'll do it.

Like I said, this is a crucible. It's do-or-die time. I'm in no mood to die, so time to start doing.

Btw, any ideas, suggestions, comments or even criticisms are welcome. ;-)

The elusive "perfect price"

2008-12-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

As anyone in business knows, figuring out how much to charge for your product or service is one of the most difficult things to determine. On one hand, you want to make a ton of money as fast as you can. On the other, price is the main factor for the vast majority of customers. (I can boldly proclaim that because I speak with the confidence of ignorance. Speaking as a customer for a wide variety of products and services, however, I really don't care to listen to pitches about "value" when something is obviously more expensive than what I can find elsewhere. Sure, gold-plated salad tongs could be a valuable family heirloom for generations to come, but come on--who eats salad?)

A typical or "standard" move in my business is one truck-load of stuff transported less than ten miles, and ten miles is pushing it. For this, assuming that I can load everything by myself, I charge $95. Scratch that--I charged, past-tense, $95. This summer I made a good amount of cash starting at that point and going up depending on the loads and distances. But that was the heyday of the business thus far. Back then, people would gasp at what a good deal it was. That prompted me to nudge my prices higher and higher. I think I peaked at about $115 for the base rate, but after that, particularly toward the end of summer, people started giving me the boot.

I'm not back down to my low price of $75 for a standard move, and I've got to tell you, it's barely worth it. Sure, people feel like they're getting a good deal--and they are--and when they're prepared to pay more, they generally tip generously. But I'm not comfortable with that price. Especially when I'm lugging a soiled mattress down a grimy basement hallway to the loading dock. And yet, when I try to get back to that comfortable $95, people go shopping elsewhere.

It makes me wonder--just who the hell is doing this work for less than that?

Actually, I know, and I'll blog on that later. It's the cut-rate half-wits whose ads on Craigslist are pre-literate, at best. They use Gmail accounts and nearly promise to make your "wildest dreams come true."

So, the search continues.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T09:16:00.001-08:00

That is all.

Praise God and pass the ammunition

2008-11-26T06:10:00.001-08:00

So, I got a gun. It shoots bullets--REAL bullets. It also makes a large bang.

That's what she said!

No really, my wife really said that. At the range last Saturday, she fired it once, put it down, went to the adjacent stall and cried. It was a big bang.

What kind of gun? A Glock 23, precisely. I shopped around for a couple of weeks, tried a few out, and finally settled on the Glock. It's not a particularly pretty gun. See:

But it holds a lot of ammo (13 rounds or so), is easy to maintain, and has the right amount of stopping power for today's modern yuppie suburban.

It's been quite an adventure. I tried out a Sig 229, a Ruger something-or-other, and a Ruger .38 Special. The .38 was particularly nice--good feel in the hand, great accuracy, and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast I could load and fire the thing. In the end, though, I went with the Glock because it had the best balance of all the features I wanted.

Why a gun? Squirrels. I hate the little rats in fuzzy pajamas.

Lol. No.

Not to sound too crazy, but things are getting close to the brink in this country. And no, it actually doesn't have a lot to do with the election. Because the Supreme Court recently ruled that we have a right as INDIVIDUALS to protect ourselves with firearms, I don't think there's a lot Obama and the Dems can do to take away that right. What gets me nervous is the likelihood of a Depression and rampant, senseless, random crime. For example, a buddy of a co-worker of mine was recently knifed to death--along with his brother and a friend--for no discernible reason. Other examples abound.

Another way to put it: I don't want to lose my life, orphan my child and widow my wife just because I decided to get some Cool Ranch Doritos down at 7/Eleven one night.

So yes, I guess that means I'll be packing heat the next time I get the munchies (after I get my concealed/carry permit, of course.

By the way, my wife is going to arm herself, too, but she needs to find a gun that she feels comfortable with. She tried out the same .38 Special I did, but it had "too much kick." Nonetheless, the very first time she fired it (which incidentally was the first time she ever fired a gun of any kind) she came within an inch of a bullseye. Her second and third shots were only a few inches from that shot.

Scary. I will now practice the phrase "We'll try it your way, honey."

Things moving sloooooow....

2008-11-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

Last year around this time it was really slow, moving biz-wise, so I expected it. But man, what a time for it to be slow. The economy is tanked for the time being, and time will tell if President-Elect Obama can deliver on his promises to fix things. I might as well go ahead and out myself here--I don't believe his Worshipfulness is going to do squat, and in fact, I think, based on what he's already said he'd do, he's going to make things a lot worse. No worries, though--he can always blame it on the Republicans (and deservedly so, to a degree).

Anyway, things are slow. I've been putting out flyers and posting ads on Craigslist, but where before I could get, on average, two or three customers from one ad, nowadays it takes about seven ads to get one customer--who then cancels for a variety of reasons.

Am I worried? Not yet. I'm actually really optimistic. Especially when you consider that a sizable chunk of people are about to get ceremoniously ejected from the Beltway. As long as they don't move too far away, it could be really good for business.

So where is the business going? Well, that remains to be seen. I'm holding on to the promise of this idea like the fundiest of fundamentalist zealots. It can WORK. I just need to kick it in gear. I've got insurance companies to haggle with, a new Web site to design (something more e-commercy), and processes to put in place. It's all a massive headache for a guy who majored in slacking and fast food service, but hey, I knew this going into it.

That's all I got right now. Phone calls to make...

A momentous event

2008-11-05T08:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, history was made. For more than two years, the critics said it couldn't be done. This time was marked by stress, fatigue and frustration, but the clouds parted and the sun broke through.

We got an offer on our condo. (What did you think I was talking about? Oh, something about a presidential election, right. How'd that go, btw?)

The deal is by no means done, and now the really hard work begins. We've dropped the price more than $45,000, so we'll see. I don't know what the offer IS yet, but whatever it is, if it means we get stuck with tens of thousands of dollars in payments just to unload the damn thing, forget it. I'd rather go into foreclosure.

Lessons learned.

Adventures in Marketing

2008-10-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

I have this graphic design/photo editing program that rivals Photoshop. It's called "PhotoImpact X3. Seriously, I think it might even be better than Photoshop. Some of its features are probably a little more manual than Photoshop's automation, but it does the job. The learning curve is a bit steep--it took me literally ten years to figure it out*--but I managed. And now I'm going nuts with it. Here are a couple of my ads:

Neat, huh? I know they're not perfect, but hey--it's my first attempt. I have a whole line of political and comic book-style ads in my head. Now that it doesn't take FOUR HOURS to figure out how to revert the font back to plain, flat, black, normal Times New Roman, I can crank 'em out pretty quickly. I just wrap the links to these ads in some HTML code and stick 'em on Craigslist. Works pretty well, although somebody should probably declare martial law on CL. You have to post every ten minutes just to compete with the bastards on there who flagrantly violate the no-multiple-posts rule.

Regular paper flyers in coffee shops have been a great means of getting the word out. However, putting them out is a real pain in the ass, and if I'm out there pinning my flyers under those advertising for massages and dog-walking services, I'm not actually helping people move. So, I'm outsourcing!

Last night I put an ad on CL around midnight seeking flyer distributors. I've gotten about 20 responses so far, and one guy even called me at 7:00 in the morning--twice! I like that kind of go-getter, can-do attitude, but dude, call me at 7:00 one more time and nobody will ever find your body. Seriously.

I wonder if this is a sign of our tough economic times--the spread of people is QUITE interesting. I've had one aspiring model/actress/singer send me a horrible resume and headshot that may or may not have been taken at K-mart. One interesting chick has a name very similar to my wife, went to GW, was a dog-walker and is now a private investigator. (My wife was a "homicide reporter," tried her hand at dog walking, and would be a P.I. in a heartbeat, probably). Another dude seems to make his career out of distributing flyers, and another wants to do business with me by putting my ads on coffee sleeves.

Heh. America, gotta love it.

Tonight I'm having dinner with the Franchise Dude I met at 7/Eleven a few months back. This is extremely welcome because I'm rapidly approaching the peak of my shit-schlepping career. Once I get a solid, reliable marketing system on auto-pilot, I'm going to need to branch out and bring on new dudes with trucks. I enjoy the physical labor, but let's face it, the guys making the real money aren't the ones at the bottom of the totem pole. Hopefully Franchise Dude will help me crystallize where I need to go next.

* Well, no, not exactly. But the first version of PhotoImpact I got was 4.2. I used it to clean up the occasional photo, but the arcane tools along the side of the screen were indecipherable to me. I knew NOTHING about graphic design. Earlier this year I got version X3 (13) and have been spending a ton of time figuring the how's and why's and I'm finally getting it.

Sarah Palin on SNL

2008-10-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Ouch. She should have stopped at the monologue. THAT was hilarious and mercifully short. But she showed up during the Weekend Update, and while she didn't talk much, Amy Pohler and some of the other cast did a (white person) "rap," and it was...painful.

Good news, bad news

2008-10-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

The bad news is that our real estate agent has given up on selling our house even at the radically reduced price of about $290,000. The good news is that we make cute babies.

Wahoo!

2008-10-10T08:23:00.001-07:00

Part of my master plan, which I call "Operation: Work for No Man," is to build up a profitable freelance copywriting business. So far, it's been going...poorly. I attribute the slow growth and anemic income to no advertising or networking of any kind. Fortunately, this is just a temporary tactic until I can kick it into high gear (in other words, until I pick a font I like.)

However, I did manage to connect with an old boss of mine who, truth be told, made my life a living hell at an old job. (Long story). Since we're both no longer with that organization, however, she seems to think I have some skills. I don't know why this should be since she hasn't seen anything I've written in the three years since we went our separate ways, but whatever.

She now runs a consulting company and needs people to write some proposals for her on the side. I just completed the first project with time to spare, and what's this, she thinks it's "really good." Honestly, I thought she'd just spike it and never talk to me again. (That's my inner critic speaking). So, there's $500 for a couple of hours worth of work. Not bad!

The sad side of foreclosures...

2008-10-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Wait--as opposed to the happy side? Whatever...

At least we managed to pack all our crap out. We're not in foreclosure yet, but the friendly folks at the bank sure like calling us. "Hey man," they say, "How's things? Business good? How's the wife and kids? Oh, just one kid? Hmm...you might want to think about having a couple more because we're coming after your first-born just as soon as we can find you..."

Anyway, here's a fun video:

Part II:

Score!

2008-10-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

My first mailing to 500 random people yielded...

wait for it...

ONE response. Just one. And not somebody in my target demo (as we say in the biz). So, I've managed to recoup a whopping 1/3 of my cost.

Lesson learned? Make a better postcard. I've gotten a dozen or so returned, so I'll try to remember to scan it and post it here. It certainly wasn't anything special, but I figured it would be somewhat compelling.

Next time will work better. I have plans. Dark, devious plans...

I make junk mail

2008-09-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

Today 500 random people (out of a list of about 1100) will get a funny postcard in the mail. It sports a picture of a car driving down the road, with a woman sitting on the door and really, hanging out the window, helping to balance two couches on the roof of said car. Underneath is my logo with the caption, "Sometimes, you just need a buddy with a truck." My contact info will be on the back.

Clear enough? I hope so, because this is what's known in the "biz," (the "biz" being lifting other people's heavy crap), as a "gamble." In the great scheme of things (great scam of things?), the cost of this mailing isn't much--$300. If only three of the people who get my postcard use my services, I'll break even. Two people could even do it if they have bigger moves or tip well. If 50 of those people use my services, I'll be sitting pretty--again, relatively speaking. I suspect that 50 might be really pushing my luck, but hey, it's worth a shot.

Upside? I discover this really works and I can count on great returns with similar mailings in the future. I could use it right now--Craigslist isn't really doing it for me, although last year at this time things really slowed down.

Downside? I just blew $300 bucks.

So, we shall see, we shall see. Wish me luck!

Holy Gurus, Batman!

2008-09-19T07:09:00.001-07:00

Whoa! I just met one of the big gurus of advertising and direct marketing--at my day job! I was reading his books a couple of months ago and came across a passage ranting about, well, what it is my non-profit works to eradicate. I thought "Hey, he'd make a great donor." One thing led to another, and now he's considering giving to the organization. He's here to meet with the top boss.

If there's a downside, it's that I was completely cut out of the loop and there's a big question mark as to whether I'll get any credit for bringing this guy on board. I almost don't care, but if I'm around for another year, you'd better believe that I'm going to fight to get a piece of the credit.

Anyway, one of the guys in our office brought him around to meet people. Damn lack of communication in this office--had I known he'd be here today, on casual Friday, I wouldn't have worn jeans and a polo shirt. I would have shaved, too.

There's so much I wanted to ask him, but he was just passing by. I did manage to thank him for his books, though, and told him about a direct mail postcard I was about to launch to a very specific group of people for my side business. He asked to see it! Damn. Damn. Damn. It's all locked up on a Web site right now, and truth be told, it's not fantastic. Certainly not up to the Guru's standards, but that's mainly a result of the direct mail company's lame postcard construction features.

Gotta run. I've got to find him and schmooze some more before he goes into his meeting.

So, about organized crime...

2008-09-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

You know how I joke about getting into organized crime? How it seems like a no-brainer--less regulation, no taxes, and you don't get fired, just dead? Well, once again I see the value in it.

My hell weekend a couple of weeks ago still isn't over. The guy with the 17th century French furniture still hasn't paid me. "You trust me, right?" he said after we'd finished the job. His checkbook was packed away somewhere, he said. I should have said "No," but I said "Yes."

No, I didn't trust him because he was merely asking for trust--he hadn't earned it.

Now, two weeks later, he's ignoring my e-mails and I'm out a significant amount of money, although it's not much to brag about. I'm giving serious thought to showing up on his doorstep with a Louisville Slugger. Just to show him, you know.

In the end I'll probably just eat it, but not before I leave about 30 messages on his cell phone.

Giving new meaning to "Labor" Day

2008-09-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

Say it with me: "I will never underbid again. Repeat: I will never underbid again."

Considering that I do a good amount of business without even advertising, I should never be ruled by that fear that if I charge too much, I'll lose customers. And yet, I choked twice last week. TWICE.

I'm getting sloppy, too, and that's a problem I'll have to nip in the bud, wherever a "bud" is.

The good news: lessons have been learned. (You mean, "learned again," right?--Subconscious) Shut up, Subconscious. When the actual day-to-day work of this business become routine, I tend to be less vigilant. I tend NOT to ask important questions such as "Is this an apartment building with long hallways and long elevator rides?" I stop asking about the weight and dimensions of key furniture pieces. I don't ask about narrow stairwells. Instead, I get a list of things to move and an address, glance at it, and give a quote. When I show up, it turns out that "dresser" means gargantuan antique piece of crap that's three quarters of the way to dust, and "8th floor" means "the freight elevator is broken and they don't let you use the other elevators for moving."

Lessons learned, but not without pain.

On Saturday morning, a relatively quick and simple job (two hours at the most, I thought) turned into five. What really sucked about that one is that I brought help along on a flat-rate quote that was, come on, admit it, WAY to low. Fortunately the guy was generous and voluntarily upped my fee, THEN tipped both me and my colleague. Still, after I paid my guy, we both walked away with about the same amount. I'm all for paying my guys well, and I'm glad S. made out well, but the way it works is this:

The CEO makes more money.

Sheesh. I should have taken some business classes.

The second move was planned and implemented in Hell. The customer, while a nice guy, didn't exactly clarify the scope and scale of the move. "I have lots of books," he said, and a "lot of crap." The key words here are "lots," "books," and "crap." I should have immediately sized on them and dug deeper. But I didn't because I actually believed him when he said "A couple of hours, tops."

Well, in moving customer land, "A couple of hours" means "SEVEN." Also, "crap" means furniture older than our country--back when they made it out of iron so it'll last longer. Oh yeah, and when you ship things from Europe, they put your books in wooden crates.

I managed to up the fee on that one, too, but it was still far below the threshold of what I call "worth it."

I left my house at 8:00 AM Saturday morning. I returned at 10:00 PM. Total take home pay: Just under $400.

Shameful. Embarassing. A teachable moment.

On Monday I spent the whole day moving my own crap which, I'm proud to say, is largely a one-man job. Nonetheless, I woke up yesterday morning and couldn't quite outrun the weekend. I'm getting pretty strong doing this side job, but yesterday I was stiff all over, in a foul mood, and under-rested. It was our first night in the new place, and I'd been looking forward to seeing the sunrise from the sixth floor. Hah! When the sun crested the trees it filled our room, particularly our bed area, with a white nuclear fire.

Oh yeah, and it was our anniversary.

After nine hours of trying to write proposals for which I couldn't find the words, my mood might best be described as "I'll kill you."

So, when I had a simple moving gig that evening, I was not into it. The only thing I wanted to do was sit on the couch, watch the TV (and I mean that quite literally--not "watch the shows on TV"--because it's going to be a week before the cable is hooked up), and drink a gallon of gin.

On the drive home after my day job, all these things crashed down on me, and I found msyelf unable to fend off the Doubts. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone has a great idea, or several, and for a brief, light moment, you know that you've had A Bright Idea. It's perfect--no one else has ever had the same idea. You can clearly see all the steps to take or obstacles to overcome. You. Will. Do. This.

And then you start to Doubt. You have a lot of phone calls to make. You question whether people will want what you propose to offer. God forbid someone should play devil's advocate...

And the idea dies. It's lifeless corpse collapses onto the pile of other idea corpses in an open, mass grave.

That's where I was with the business last night. Driving home, detesting my day job, I Doubted my dream. (Yes, starting a moving company is an odd, pedestrian sort of dream, I suppose, but it's all I got at the moment...) I knew, just KNEW, that I wouldn't be able to overcome the regulatory hurdles. I knew that I'd reach the fee ceiling long before I turned this into a really profitable business. I knew that my truck was going to break down the day I quit my day job. I knew...

I knew a whole lot of things that I have absolutely no proof for. I wasn't being rational. I was in a really, really bad mood.

But a funny thing happened on the job. At the shop where I was picking up a load of bikes for delivery, one of the employees asked me for my card. He'd just bought a foreclosure house, you see, and he was going to need to transport a lot of supplies in the future and could he have a card?

The teenage kid saw my truck signs and said "Hey, that's a really good idea..."

In fact, the person who contracted me said the business was a "fantastic idea."

While unloading the customer's bikes in her parking lot, a woman walked by and asked for a card. "This is a really handy service you provide," she said.

And this morning, a passer-by said she'd seen my cards in the apartment building and had checked out my Web site. "Good idea," she said.

My wife called a little bit ago. "I'm so sorry," she said, "but I missed two calls on the business phone..."

This morning the sun didn't burn and I found no evidence of a mass idea grave. Things are rolling inexorably toward some conclusion that I can't help but think, one way or another, will be a blessing.

Yes, I know, the whiplash is killing me, too. Pass the Ben Gay.

Making a tactical retreat...

2008-08-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

Down below I posted this picture under the header "Guess where we are now."

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I suppose I should give an answer. It's kind of important to the purpose of this blog, after all...

That's our new apartment. It's a sixth-floor unit on the corner of a hotel-style building. In other words, almost the perfect form of what I hate about city living. But the thing is, I kind of like it. More on that in a second.

The short version is that after a year of struggle, a lot of hindsight, and some number crunching, we realized that we weren't going to get anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the bills threatened to bury us. Our condo was on the market, but the price, we knew, wasn't realistic. The Realtors were begging us to drop the price, but even where we had it, it still would have cost us thousands in closing costs. So, we decided to do a short sale.

We'd tried negotiating with the bank before, but until you miss a payment, they couldn't care less about you. So, this month will be the first time we've missed a payment in more than two years. We hate it, it's embarrassing, but it's all we can do. The savings are just about gone and it's about to come down to this: baby formula or the mortgage payment. (He's a perfect child, but man, that kid can eat. In goes the formula every couple of hours, and out goes the, well, you know. I've spent more on diapers in the last six months than gas, methinks...)

We're reasonably certain we can unload the place in a month or so. We've already been getting positive responses at the new price, and we have a team of Realtors and a lawyer working to ensure everything goes smoothly--and that we're not hit up by the banks later on for the difference.

This is partly a calculated maneuver. It's also partly the result of my apathy. Working my day job plus running a moving business in the evenings, all while trying to be a good husband and father just wore me out. When, for a week or so earlier this month, my wife suggested we try a raffle for the place, the mere thought of another project nearly brought me to tears. "Sure," I said, "But that's your baby. I'm done." Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) that option was killed by the law pretty quickly.

So, once we made up our minds, we went apartment shopping. We ended up signing a lease on the first place we saw, although we did look around at quite a few others. And ironically, the place we chose is the site of one of my moves. (That's actually not so surprising considering how many places I've been in the last year). Four months ago, it was a dump. It even made my truck sad, and the battery died in the parking lot. But they've since renovated it, and it's actually pretty nice. Except for the construction dust that keeps getting everywhere, it's clean, has new hardwood floors, new paint, granite counter tops, and my favorite--a decent view of the south-southeastern sky which will mean EXCELLENT telescopic viewing of Jupiter, Orion, and possibly even Saturn. (I have to reacquaint myself with the night sky).

Still, it's a hotel-style apartment building. I will consider this my penance for stupid real estate sins of the past.

I'm optimistic. We've cut our housing budget by more than $1,000. The business is poised to do very well (just a couple more regulatory hurdles), and we have acres of additional space. Oh, and speaking of the moving business, the building is only about 30% full right now, and the management suggested I put flyers up advertising my services. My own building will be a small cash cow for a while.

So, that's that. Lessons learned.

Life Imitates The Simpsons

2008-08-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

A few (dozen?) seasons back, there was an eppie of The Simpsons where Marge and the town staged a fake awards show for some reason. It was for the "Awareness Awards," and the statue was an obelisk with an eyeball at the top. Woody Allen won an armload of the things for his efforts to "raise awareness."

The other day, a co-worker (and the girl who designed the logo for my moving business) put a catalog on my desk called "Crestline." It's tag-line: "Creating awareness for 45 years."

Hah hah. Just when I was about to grow up and stop watching that show it becomes prophecy...

MFD is underway VIII

2008-08-22T09:11:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway VII

2008-08-22T08:41:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway VI

2008-08-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway V

2008-08-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway IV

2008-08-22T08:05:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway III

2008-08-22T08:03:00.001-07:00

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MFD is underway II

2008-08-22T06:40:00.001-07:00

BTW, Mandatory Fun Day is an office trip down to a theme park. It's their way of saying 'Thanks.'
I'll take it, but I'd rather have cash. Or booze. Booze would work.

MFD is underway

2008-08-22T06:20:00.001-07:00

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Mandatory Fun Day begins in 5...4...3....

2008-08-22T05:40:00.001-07:00

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Guess where we are now...

2008-08-20T17:08:00.001-07:00

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The importance of asking for more...

2008-08-20T06:48:00.001-07:00

The other day I got a call for an estimate on an office clean-out job. It's going to be amazingly simple and straightforward--two heavy items requiring the help of another guy, and they're not THAT heavy. Heck, after some of the things I've lifted, I'm thinking about wearing a spandex superhero outfit under my suit. Some cheerleader is unbreakable? Hah! I curl armoires before breakfast.

Anyway, the customer must have caught me immediately after another one of my "charity weekends," in which I radically underbid everyone else out of fear of *gasp* losing a job. I do this all the time--I'd rather throw out my back, lose money, and potentially destroy merchandise than have to tell someone "I can't do it." So, more often than I'm comfortable admitting, I throw out some low-ball figure and--surprise, surprise--customers throw themselves on the quote like it's a candy grenade.

(Hmm...does "candy grenade" work? Have to think about that...)

The customer is a nice old lady with a third floor art gallery in Old Town. She needs to move a number of items downstairs to the trash, but one item is going to her place a couple of miles away.

After she showed me the details of the job, she asked "What would you charge for this?"

I thought about it for a few seconds. I was going to need an extra dude, the staircase, while spacious, was still a staircase, and the "extra" trip to her home was basically another move. The thought of doing all that for less than $100, (then my standard in-town rate for moves under five miles) depressed the hell out of me. So, I confidently gave a figure I felt comfortable with--something that I thought was worth my time.

"$250."

"Great!" she said.

"This is a Lesson," that interior voice said. For some reason that voice, which has been instructing me quite a bit lately, sounds just like Samuel L. Jackson.

"Listen," Samuel L. Jackson said, "How many more times do your customers have to tell you your prices are too low? You don't have to wonder about this--your prices are too low, mother @#$%er!"

"Uh..." I say to Samuel L. Jackson.

"Raise your damn prices."

"Yes sir," I say.

"Excuse me?" the gallery owner says.

"Never mind," I say, and leave.

Anyway, my prices have since gone up--WAY up, relative to what I was originally charging--and I'm still underbidding most guys out who are doing what I do. Not only that, most of my business comes from referrals and word-of-mouth. I suppose it's a stupid lesson every entrepreneur or new small business owner must learn, but it doesn't hurt to ask for more--particularly when your "more" is still LESS than the other guys.

Thank you, Samuel L. Jackson, for your badass advice.

This is why I'm in business...

2008-08-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

A little off-topic...

2008-08-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours brought us to our first Nationals game the other night. It was against the Mets. Because Joseph was pretty much terrified of all the bright lights and loud music, I didn't get to see much of the game, but it was still a really good time. It's a cozy little stadium, and they're right--ALL the seats have great views.

On the way out, Grace pointed to the souvenir shop and said "Didn't you want to get a new hat?"

Well, er, sort of.

I've been perfectly happy with my Wrigley Field hat that I got AT Wrigley Field about a month after 9/11. I'd just gotten laid-off from a job and was in Chicago for a wedding. It was a clear, cool day, I was free, feeling that potential that only comes from being between jobs and having a tidy little savings account. That was the year Sammy Sosa hit 64 home runs, so it was pretty cool seeing him play. The beer cost me almost half my savings, but it went down easy and bloomed inside me with warmth and peace.

On the way out, I picked up a hat. I knew I wouldn't likely be back to Wrigley Field, so I splurged and got it.

Now seven years later, it's seen some miles. The brim is frayed, it's stained with sweat, and faded from the sun and the salt of my brow. Grace calls it "disgusting." I call it "comfortable."

However, it was probably down to it's last wash. Every time I throw it in the washer, it comes out dramatically more damaged. One more time and there won't be any more cloth on the brim--just blue plastic.

So, I relented and bought a Nationals hat. It's blue with a red-and-white W on the front, and the Nationals logo on the back. It's actually pretty cool-looking, not as fresh and dorky as first-day hats are.

Fridays are casual days at work, and so last Friday I put on my hat and was about to turn the radio off when the news came on.

"It's official," the teaser said, "The Nats are now officially the worst team in baseball. More coming up next on WMAL."

Crap.

Who sent me a check?

2008-08-07T11:24:00.001-07:00

I received a cashier's check in the mail today for about $1350. I have no idea why, and Chase (who issued the cashier's check) doesn't know who sent it either. There is no solicitation, no "rewards" information, no nothing. Just a check, made out to me, for over $1300.

It's quite the mystery...

Top 25 you may be a racist...

2008-08-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

From NRO:

25 Reasons You May be a Racist [Peter Kirsanow]

The tendency of Obama supporters to see racist impulses behind every criticism of their candidate has evolved into absurdity. Now even the first black president feels compelled to declare he's not a racist. By this measure, nearly every American is at risk of being branded a racist at some point in the campaign. To assess whether you're at risk just consult the list below ( apologies to Jeff Foxworthy ):

1.If you think Obama's the most liberal member of the senate you...may be a racist.

2.If you object to Obama raising your payroll, capital gains and estate taxes you...may be a racist.

3.If you'd prefer a president have at least some foreign policy experience you...may be a racist.

4. If you're in favor of drilling for oil and building nuclear power plants you...may be a racist.

5. If you think "Vero Possemus" is Latin for "Massive Ego" you... may be a racist.

6. If you wonder why Obama was hanging around William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn you...may be a racist.

7. If your pastor is nothing like Rev. Wright or Father Pfleger you... may be a racist.

8.If you don't want the majority of justices on the Supreme Court to be like Stephen Breyer you...may be a racist.

9. If you're not impressed with Obama's 100% NARAL rating you...may be a racist.

10. If you're not sure whether Obama opposed or supported FISA reauthorization you...may be a racist.

11. If you don't think America is a "downright mean" country you...may be a racist.

12. If you think Obama should've visited wounded troops at Ramstein and Landstuhl you...may be a racist.

13. If you think the surge is working and that's a good thing you...may be a racist.

14. If you oppose racial preferences in employment, school admissions and contracting you...may be a racist.

15. If you think "we are the change we've been waiting for" is a line from a Monty Python skit you...may be a racist.

16. If you prefer that a president have a smidgen of executive experience you...may be a racist.

17. If you're appalled that Obama voted against treating infants born after an abortion attempt the same medically as other infants born alive you...may be a racist.

18. If you were proud of your country even before Obama's candidacy you...may be a racist.

20. If you don't think American troops are just "air raiding villages" you...may be a racist.

21. If your grandmother isn't a "typical white person" you...may be a racist.

22. If you don't think rural, working class people are bitter and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" you...may be a racist.

23. If you're not sure invading Pakistan is a particularly good idea—what with their nuclear weapons and all— you...may be a racist.

24. If you don't want the president to meet without precondition with the leaders of state sponsors of terror you...may be a racist.

25. If you don't care how Hollywood or the European elite think you should vote you...may be a racist.

This campaign has, to paraphrase Moynihan, defined racism down.

Things my son is teaching me about life...

2008-08-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

When you want something, do everything you can to get it and don't stop making noise until you do. Once you get it, be grateful and smile.

Have you seen that Onion video about this campaign season?

2008-08-04T08:30:00.001-07:00

The one that said the #1 campaign issue this year will be "bullshit?" I keep coming back to that. I think it was the most prescient political commentary I've yet heard in this election season.

Here's the video in case you haven't seen it: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/poll_bullshit_is_most_important

Sorry I'm late...

2008-08-04T07:39:00.001-07:00

Hi! I hope you haven't been waiting long. I was delayed on the way to financial independence. Nothing major. Just short-sighted insurance companies who inexplicably refuse to recognize the brilliance of my business idea. They said something about wanting to see a "business plan," which just goes to show that they don't understand the pure, industry-changing genius of my idea.

So, I'll be switching to Plan B, C, D. Plan D is too complicated to get into here, plus it's incriminating, but let's just say it involves stalking.

Other than some irritating regulatory kinks, the moving biz is going well. With minimal advertising, I'm still bringing in a couple thousand dollars worth of work per month. When I kick it into high gear, I should have more than enough business to be able to pick and choose which jobs I want to take, and you better believe I'll be picking jobs like the last one I had this weekend: hauling about five suitcases 10 miles away for $100. Good work if you can get it. I can.

Obviously I don't intend to make this my life. (At least, I hope it's obvious, and I mean that I don't intend to be the actual MOVER for the rest of my life). As business keeps coming in, customers keep telling me what a fantastic idea the business is, and more importantly, they keep telling me I'm not charging enough. I've got some good systems in place, and in the next few months I should be in a good place to replicate this around the country. If nothing else, it'll make a good information product, as I believe it was Taylor who suggested it.

I have a little dilemma, though. I'm thinking about quitting my job.

I believe I've discussed this before. How shall I sum up the situation? Perhaps it will suffice to say that my job is like the Dementer from the Harry Potter movies--it sucks the living soul right from my body. My editor/supervisor couldn't write a shopping list, and he constantly screws with my copy so that I have to rewrite everything. No, I'm no Bill Buckley or Mark Twain -- not even a James Patterson -- but my work doesn't merit his "fixes."

And, let's be honest here -- I'm just not a good employee. I mean, look at me -- I'm blogging!

I could, in theory, replace my current income with just the moving business. With minimal advertising and word-of-mouth, I make just over half of my salary right now. That's not a hell of a lot, but it's pretty good for schlepping people's stuff a couple of nights a week. One $100 move per day, which is about two hours worth of work, would do the trick.

Cons: no health insurance, and the switch from "get to" to "have to" might just kill the thrill of small business ownership.

Pros: No bosses, complete entrepreneurial freedom, and further development of some now decently-defined pectoral and bicep muscles.

Of course I wouldn't just rely on the moving income. I'd be able to pursue some freelance writing projects which I'm chomping at the bit to get to. In theory, I could be looking at not only replacing my current income, but vastly increasing it.

It's a huge decision. I'll need to think about this a little bit more, run some numbers, consult an all-star panel of priests and psychics, etc. (Now THAT would be a fun panel). Things cannot stand the way they are now. I'm holding on, and the condo, while it's killing us, is still a manageable crisis. But I can't do this indefinitely. Next month marks the one-year anniversary of the moving biz, and I think that when that date hits, well, I've made bold predictions before. I won't do it now. But let's just say I'm considering a nuclear option.

Too cryptic? Well, stick around. Thanks for indulging my stream-of-consciousness!

And the beat goes on...

2008-07-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

The project is proceeding apace, although I've hit a snag. Customers continue to call or e-mail with very little advertising on my part, so that means word-of-mouth is working well. A journalist buddy of mine is going to get a masters in business journalism in New York, and he wants to do his master's thesis on my company. I've also been in contact with the franchising guy who stopped me at 7/Eleven a few months ago. While nothing has been proposed and certainly nothing has been finalized, he's proving to be a good person to bounce ideas off of.

However, one thing threatens to abort the whole thing: insurance.

Meeting the State of Virginia's burdensome liability requirement ($750,000) taken care of was relatively easy. But cargo ($50,000) is another story. I've been turned down by several of the very few cargo insurance providers because of the potentially costly claims that may come from carrying household goods. One thing keeps coming up: Say I haul somebody's office somewhere. But that nice landscape picture on the wall isn't just some print knock-off from Staples, but an actual Monet. Then let's say I drive through a thunderstorm and the tarp blows off my truck. (Highly unlikely, I try to tell the insurance companies through the agents, as I'm wrap my jobs so thoroughly it would make the Trojan corporation jealous). Then the Monet turns into a Henry: Age 6, Mrs. Johnson's kindergarten class.

To be completely legal, I need this insurance. I need it to cover my own butt, too, obviously. And if I can't get it for one truck, then how's this going to work when I try to go national?

It's becoming clear that what I need is a special kind of insurance company that's willing to get creative, and that recognizes a great opportunity when it comes along. I also have to finally get my business plan together and make a good, strong case for WHY this is such a great opportunity.

That's pretty much where things are at right now. I'm also working on marketing plans, various admin stuff that doesn't need to be blogged about, and trying to keep my head above water at my day job. That's a whole 'nother story...

Tony Snow, requiescat in pace

2008-07-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Tony Snow was, for me, different than most of the other public figures who we've eulogized in recent months and years. He was different because I actually met him and can say that the kind words being spoken about him were spot on. He was a good guy and will be missed.

The first time I met Mr. Snow was at a Heritage Foundation Christmas party for the media. I was an editor for The Washington Times back then, and also as green as they came. (Only divine intervention can be accredited for getting me a superficially cool-sounding title as "editor" of a national paper. In truth, the Moonie Times probably would have hired anyone.) Nonetheless, I got an invite through someone somehow.

I always hated those things even while I tried as hard as I knew how to get into them. Inevitably I would travel to such events full of excitement only to quickly find the bar and fade to the background as soon as I arrived. Sure, there were lots of people like me -- hangers-on and hacks, interns and the nakedly ambitious who'd only recently graduated from college. But the conservative literati also attended this event. Over there was Bob Novak. Nearby was Cal Thomas.

And grinning his way through the crowd was Tony Snow.

At the time he was an anchor at Fox News, not the president's press secretary. But I'd read a little bit about him, and one thing that I retained was that he had a rock & roll band. I was learning guitar at the time, so this stuck with me.

I made a point to mingle through the crowd, trying not to embarrass myself too much, but inevitably failing. I'd come to Washington with strong opinions which I mistook to be knowledge. It showed, and more than one conservative luminary simply walked away from me in disgust. Heh. It was a brutal time.

I backed into someone as I tried to extricate myself from another embarrassingly revealing conversation. I turned, fearing I'd spilled Bob Novak's drink all over his wife or something, but it was Tony Snow.

"My apologies," I said. And then, before I could stop myself, "Where's the band playing these days?"

He laughed and told me they weren't playing much right then, but he hoped to soon. Then we chatted for a bit, and like others have been saying today, he was one of the most open, unassuming people you've ever met. I was obviously a poor, rookie journalist who probably wouldn't go anywhere in this town, but he didn't once look around seeking somebody more important to talk to. For a few minutes, it was just me and Tony, talking about power chords and favorite influences. I can't possibly say I "knew" the man, but I'd like to think that for a second he enjoyed talking about one of his passions that didn't involve politics.

The second time I met him was less of a meeting and more of a passing by. He was talking to a colleague at the Corner Bakery in Union Station. It was not long after his first bout with cancer. I was in line behind him. He turned and looked at me, nodded with some recognition but not dismissively.

"Howdy," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Good, thanks," he said. Then his friend turned his attention away and they moved on.

Rest in peace, Mr. Snow. Thanks for being a nice guy in a town with a shortage of them.

joe at stonehenge ii

2008-07-08T12:15:00.001-07:00

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joe at stonehenge

2008-07-08T12:14:00.001-07:00

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mm at stonehenge

2008-07-08T12:02:00.001-07:00

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stoneheage ii

2008-07-08T12:01:00.001-07:00

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stoneheage

2008-07-08T11:59:00.001-07:00

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the gorge

2008-07-08T11:58:00.001-07:00

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On vacation...

2008-07-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

Much to blog about, but I'm finding it difficult. The pool, hot tub, golf course, family and friends keep distracting me...

:-)

Back soon--possibly tonight!

A wacky marketing test... UPDATED

2008-06-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

I'm juggling about four different ventures right now if you count my day job, and all of them will involve a heavy dose of marketing. (Look for an upcoming pitch, all you house flippers--need some copy written? I'm your man.) One quirky "offline" idea I had was to stick refrigerator magnets to the side of my truck. They're like magnetic business cards, and people are always commenting on my truck signs in parking lots, so why not stick a bunch of magnets on the side that say "take me!"?

We'll see how it goes. Feel free to steal my idea and pay for the idea via a PayPal link soon to be added to the site. ;-)

UPDATE: By the way, VistaPrint's free fridge magnets are really crappy. Maybe they do a better job with their regularly priced items, but the print was blurry and the logo so fuzzy that I could barely read it.

You didn't live up to your hype, VP...

UPDATE II: Almost forgot to mention it, but I was in the McDonald's drive-through and some guy came up and asked if I moved slot machines. I told him I moved just about anything--bedroom sets, couches, blow--and he said he might need my services. "Grab a magnet," I said, and he did.

Later that evening, I helped someone move a chair to his daughter's place. (Easy money, that). I was out of business cards, so I just peeled a magnet off the truck and handed it to her.

Then, after I'd gotten home, I had to go out to my truck for something. One of our neighbors was getting out of her car next to mine. She stopped and stared at the magnets on the side of the truck. "Great idea!" she said when she saw me.

"Thanks!"

"I've really enjoyed seeing all of your new ideas..."

Then she gave me the keys to the city because she was really the mayor. They're having a parade in my honor next Tuesday and I owe it all to the magnets.*

*Not true.

Ford knows their trucks...

2008-06-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

Warranty on truck expires at 30,000 miles.

Truck won't start while out on a moving job after the odometer hits 30,001 miles.

But, you learn to make do:

Stupid is expensive...

2008-06-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been under a certain amount of stress because I'm juggling a lot of chainsaws. It takes laser-like concentration to keep most of them in the air, and you want to keep them up there where they're less likely to decapitate you. Since I have the short-term memory of a fruit fly, I am constantly worried that I'm forgetting some vital detail, or some critical appointment. I'm worried that, while juggling chainsaws, I'll be distracted by a shiny quarter on the ground, bend down to pick it up, ("Ooh! A quarter!") and wind up with a chainsaw in my crack.

The other day I forgot about one of those chainsaws.

My "real" job has an agreement with the Baptist church next door. Since parking is limited under our building, not everyone gets a spot, and we can park in the Baptist lot. I'm supposed to get the next spot, but nobody is quitting just yet. So, I park in the Baptist parking lot and play a spirited game of Frogger across the main artery into Old Town to get to my office. 99% of the time, I get there early enough. But sometimes, like that morning, the Baptists have all of their shuttles parked in the lot, leaving no room for any other cars.

No problem--it's their lot, after all. And we do have a lot of visitor spots underneath our building. The only problem with that is the parking lot Nazi. I don't know what country he's from or what his background is, but I have never known a man so committed to bureaucracy and the letter of the law than this man--and I live near D.C. He sits in a chair near the stairwell listening to NPR ALL FREAKING DAY LONG. He has a whole office set up--footrest, water cooler, radio. I wouldn't be surprised if he held board meetings with himself down there.

(A side note: One of our first conversations went something like this after the first time I parked in a visitor space. Imagine a thick African accent on his part:

Parking Lot Nazi: You can't pah-k he-ah.

Me: It's just for today--the church lot is full.

PLN: You can't pah-k he-ah.

Me: It's a visitor spot and the church lot is full.

PLN: You can't pah-k he-ah.

Now I'm wondering if that's the only English he knows. So, like a good American, I speak louder and slower.

Me: The BAPTIST CHURCH PARKING LOT (over-articulating a pointing gesture now) is ALL FULL. (For "all full" I make a gesture like an explosion. I don't know why. It was the only gesture I could come up with that meant "full."

PLN: You can't pah-k he-ah.

Me: LISTEN to me, SIR. I HAVE TO park HERE or I'll be LATE for WORK.

Then he turned away and stared off into space. I tried getting his attention, but it was the weirdest thing--he just...disappeared within himself.

Since then we've had the same conversation, oh, about ten times. So, that morning, I wasn't in the mood for going another go-round but it couldn't be helped. I had nowhere else to go.)

Another problem with the below-ground garage is that there isn't very much clearance. The top of my pick-up just shaves the lowest hanging pipes, not to mention the concrete beam at the entrance. I always have to take my ladder rack down so I don't rip it out of the bed of my truck, possibly taking chunks of the bed, too. I came close to doing that the day after I got it installed: when going into a parking garage near my place, the ladder rack hit the concrete height-indicating concrete bar across the entrance. The damage was minimal, but it did slightly bend the rear post of the rack.

"I'll never do that again!" I swore.

So, I pulled out of the Baptist church's parking lot, pulled over, and reconfigured a load I had back there. (It was my load--I normally keep all my hand-trucks and my bike on our porches. But I had loaded all that stuff into my truck because we were having an open house and I didn't want a bunch of clutter around the place.)

Once I'd laid the bike and hand-trucks down, I got into my truck and headed for the office's parking garage.

Apparently, in my haste to get it done fast and get to work, I'd forgotten one essential thing--taking down the ladder rack. I realized this about .02 seconds after the scrotum-tightening sound of metal ripping and shrieking against concrete, coupled with the nauseating gut-feeling of the whole truck shuddering along vectors it was not intended to sustain.

Have you ever screamed the F-word in a nearly empty parking garage? I recommend it. Do it loud enough and you might give yourself a little thrill.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of my truck wasn't the damage to it, but the O-face on the guy looking out of his car window as he waited in traffic just outside the garage. "Oh...shit," I thought.

The second thing I noticed was that the rear rack post was bent at a 45 degree angle, and the metal above the bed "sleeve" had completely buckled. It was a total loss.

The third thing I noticed was that the front rack post was leaning against a PVC pipe that looked not unlike a sewage pipe. If I'd gone two more inches, not only would I have done further damage to my truck, but I also would have taken an epic shit shower. At least I had just waxed the truck.

Further compounding the problem was the height of the garage. In order to take the ladder rack posts out, all you have to do is slide the post out of its sleeve about 12 inches. The problem was that I only had about two inches to work with. The rear post was easy to deal with--I just had to twist it until the few threads of steel ripped out. But the front post--problem.

I was beyond frustrated at this point. I'd just gotten a little bit ahead with the big office move, and now I have to buy a new ladder rack. I'd gotten this one for ONE CENT at Home Depot. (It wasn't in their system, so they just let me have it. Normally $150, that's an awesome deal. I've had guys stop and ask where I got that particular rack.)

I tried sliding the front rack out, but it just hit the ceiling. That's when I lost it. I'm embarrassed to even write about it, but at that moment I acted like a child. I slammed the post up and down in its sleeve, pounding the bed of the truck and the ceiling. I tried rotating it, but that was foolish, and I just ended up making myself look like a mad butter-churner. And I HAD TO get that thing out because until I did, my truck wasn't going anywhere. I was lodged into the garage, right at the entrance, and my co-workers would be showing up at any second.

Eventually I had to get out my tool set and just unbolt the thing from the bed. Only a few of my co-workers drove by and saw the situation, but still, word travels fast around the office...

+++

I found a replacement rack on eBay, fortunately. The damage isn't too bad--just $135 which includes shipping. But get this--the seller's name is "leekyballs." Heh. That almost makes up for the pain and expense of the whole fiasco...

Adventures in the moving business...

2008-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm really surprised that something like this hasn't happened yet, but on Saturday it finally did.

I was driving down the road with one of the guys who works for me occasionally, and I asked him how the job went earlier that morning. (I couldn't get to it, so I just contracted him to do it and kick me back $25.) A man of few words, he gave me the basic details:

"It was alright. Really easy. Tough corner at the bottom of the stairs."

Then we drove in silence for a minute, and I was about to make some inane comment about the weather, when he said, "A vibrator rolled out of the bed, though. And more rubbers than I've ever seen fell out from between the mattresses."

"Rubbers?" I thought.

I'd been riding with this guy for 30 minutes before he finally decided to let those details out.

"What?!?" I spluttered. "Did they know you saw them?"

Checking his iPhone while he spoke, he said, "I dunno. Maybe. I heard her say to her husband 'I think he saw...' but I didn't hear the rest."

Then, "It was a big one."

Then he made a phone call to his girlfriend and talked about a picnic they were going to.

I think "desensitized" may be an apt word to describe my latest moving buddy.

+++

I should also probably mention that one of my customers might be a gangster, or at least a big fan of The Sopranos. His name will be changed to protect my own butt, but it's a lot like "Fatty." He's an older dude, well-tanned despite his theoretical indoor job, well-wrinkled, and possessed of a short temper and attention span. He's got gold chains on his wrist and around his neck, and--get this--his cell phone's ring tone is the theme to "The Godfather."

I did not want to piss this guy off...

Daddy works hard...

2008-06-12T05:58:00.001-07:00

...so I can live it up.

Now where's that guy with my mojito???

Updates

2008-06-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

One of these days I'm going to go back and count all the entries that begin with "Sorry I'm such a terrible blogger," or some similar phrase. (We know I really won't, don't we?) But I AM sorry, you happy few readers. I know you spend at least 30 seconds per day checking out the blog, and that's 30 seconds I'm STEALING from you. I bring shame to my family because if there's one thing Dad always told me, it was "Don't be a non-blogging time bandit." Considering that he first uttered those words in 1981, you can see how forward-thinking he is, and why people should listen to him.

[/A.D.D.]

Anyway, remember the big office move I had a month ago? Well, it was canceled a total of three times, but the fourth attempt actually stuck. I had to scramble after the last cancellation because I didn't bother to line up the guys--I figured the business owner and building owner were flaking off and didn't care how bad they kept sticking it to the poor, low-rate moving guy. Turns out it had less to do with their personal flakiness and more to do with them getting the lease to the new office. So, when they finally called with a firm, non-negotiable date two days hence, I had to get in gear.

Three of the guys from my first crew either couldn't or wouldn't make it. (Can't blame them--getting canceled on twice tends to erode confidence). But one committed. Then I got him to find a new buddy. Eventually I mined my day job for big, extra guys, finally securing our IT guy and an intern.

The problem was that I personally couldn't make it to the gig on Saturday. I was out of town attending a wedding the night before, and apologizing to everyone for my behavior the next morning. It was also a three-hour drive back to town. As it happens, I learned a valuable lesson. Or rather, I got real-world experience of a lesson I already knew--hire good people and things will go smoothly. By the time I got to the job, it was 3/4 completed, and the business' employees were raving about how good and efficient they were.

That was a ginormous relief because on the three-hour drive back, I had insane traffic, terrible AC on one of the hottest days of the year, and my son was about to scream his head off. By hour two I was positive that the guys had run into some snag they couldn't fix without me, and they'd quit and gone home. Turns out all the stress was in vain--it went off without a hitch.

So, I'm going to collect a check today for three hours of "work" on my part (minus the time it took to line up all the guys four times), and that check will be about as much as what I'll pay the guys combined. They will be paid well, but hey, I'm the boss and that's how entrepreneurship works. ;-)

This gig was unusual--I don't do a lot of (or any) office moves, or big moves that require multiple dudes. In fact, I've wanted to stay out of that market because I've got a good system going here. However, after seeing how easy it is to do what I just did, I'm going to add "Commercial Services" or something like that to what I do. There's a lot of money out there, and a few gigs like this per month could put piles of it in my pockets.

In other news, our condo is on the market. We've got it listed significantly above where the market's at right now, but just a little more than what we owe on it, and we're working with an attorney to prepare for the inevitable short sale. We held and open house on Saturday, and a few people seemed somewhat interested, so we'll see. I don't hope for a second that we'll sell the place in the near future at a price that bails us out, though.

Give me 10 or 12 hours...

2008-06-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

I'm at the 7/11 in our neighborhood every morning buying reasonably priced coffee. Two guys are at the coffee station, one a painter, one an Arlington County worker of some kind. The county guy wore heavy work shorts, work boots, and a faded gray t-shirt with a pocket holding a box of Marlboros. The painter wore grubby painter pants and had his big black sunglasses propped up on his head. Like all painters, he had a pony tail and three or four days' worth of stubble on his face.

"Thank God it's Friday. What are you doing this weekend" the painter asked the county guy.

County guy mumbled "I don't know." He spoke it to the counter top. He was very shy.

"It's gonna be a hot one," the painter said. "Better stay inside all day."

The county guy said "I can't."

"Why?" asked the painter.

"I can't stay indoors all weekend. Hate it."

"Ah, man," said the painter, "You need to get yourself a Playstation. You can kill 10 or 12 hours that way."

I think I swooned a little bit. 10 or 12 hours devoted just to playing video games? Such indulgence! Such luxury! I mean, give me 10 or 12 hours straight to do ANYTHING and I could...do anything. My wife and son are my world, and I'm finding that not only do I say I'll do anything for them, but I DO anything for them. (And I have--that's why I haven't been blogging much. ;-)) But 10 to 12 hours dedicated to a meaningless pursuit? Wow. Tempting. Impossible right now, but tempting.

When I came out of my reverie, painter and county guy were still stirring their coffees. (Painter had dumped over ten packets of sugar in his). I felt bad for this guy. He was probably my age or slightly younger, and his idea of time well spent was wasting half a day playing video games. I thought, I'm standing next to a slave... Then I started talking.

"You know," I said, "If I hadn't had a Nintendo in college, I'd be a richer man today."

Painter looked down at me (he was tall) as if wondering why I dared speak to him. But I have a Littleton, Colorado Police Department shirt on today, (from a former job), and it makes me look somewhat official. He grunted and went back to his coffee.

"Give me 10 or 12 hours and I'll make 500 bucks," I said, and went and paid for my coffee.

I like to think I made a difference today. ;-)

Irony detector in the red...

2008-05-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

My trailer blew a tire two weeks ago, and it's taking me forever to get it fixed. The first problem is time--who has it? The second was the tire--who has one? I had to special order it, and it finally came in yesterday but I had to meet with some real estate agents about putting our condo on the market. (Hey, it's a good location and we can dream, although comps are about $20K less than what we need. That's another post...)

Anyway, I needed something to increase my small jack's reach. I looked all around our parking lot for a brick, or a chunk of concrete, anything. Nothing. So, I went back in and found the only thing thick an durable enough to prop under a jack and trailer: the 2005 Writer's Market book.

Sigh.

It's about time I got some use out of that thing.

By the way, yes, that is a dog house in the back of my trailer. I've been trying to unload that thing for weeks. Anyone want it? It's cedar, dry inside, and the top is like a convertible.