I originally had an awesome idea for a very reflective, deep post- unfortunately, though I started to write it, I think I started to late as all my awesome ideas were failing to form on the screen.
Instead I decided I would take you on a tour of what my days look like now. And since this may bore many of you, I brought pictures!
Below I give you a tour of my week. Of course, the way I keep track of all this is with my lovely secretary, Miss LG-VX9800. By now just about everybody has met her, but heres a picture anyway:
Monday
Get up at 8:00am. I need a place for my recycling business to grow outside of the garage, I set up a meeting last week to look a place in Nashua. Its at a decent location, has a loading dock, has 1000 sq ft. with alot of room to grow AND its at a good price bracket. The only negative about this property is that its right near the river and in the basement. This year and last, it flooded to about my chin. This makes it tough to sell. But its also one of the reasons I love it: Since copper and aluminum don't rust, flooding means maybe at worst moving the steel and tools out of the space once a year, and at best a bargaining chip for a lower price. So I'm excited about the property- it looks like a great place to chop of transformers like this one:
Went to a computer store, bought a cooler a contact wanted in exchange for some scrap. Then I pulled into a car tuner store and asked them how much to install some body kit parts. My truck, glorious though it may be, is not going to be with us much longer. I want to get a stable commuter and a big cargo carrying vehicle. For the commuter, I have my eyes on this hott 1993 Honda Prelude. What makes it so utterly attractive to me is that its butt ugly right now- half of the body kit is installed but not painted, and the back end isn't installed. All the parts come with it though, and the guy wants to sell it. I can probably trade the truck in to him and get it for $400 or so. That leaves me room to throw the body kit on and paint it, and get a cargo vehicle. See? Responsible and practical...
Okay, I'll admit- this car is drives and looks AMAZING too. Heres a stock Prelude from the same year (complete girl with freaky death stare):
Not too bad looking, eh? Yeah, well if I get the one I'm looking at, the body's been all tricked out and looks way cooler.
Anyway, after getting the quote from that dude, I went home and ate, then left to work at [AwesomeCo] till 11. Came home and watched two episodes of "The Office" with my sister. Went to bed around 1 someting.
Tuesday
Got up at 9:00am, I think. Met my old economics teacher at 12:00pm to let him hawk me insurance. The cool stuff about this insurance (Perm) is that you can do stuff with it. Unlike regular (term) insurance, you are actually putting money into something you own. It gathers interest and you can even withdraw money from it like a bank account. The cool part is its tax differed- so you don't get charged for the interest you earn like in a regular account (such as my ING Direct). He bought lunch (score!) and I had a good time.
After that we walked down the street to a Practice where he introduced me to his lawyer, whom I might very well use for my upcoming business venture. I got to ask him a few questions and got his pricing and contact info for later.
Left Manchvegas, went back to Salem and got to work for [AwesomeCo]. Got out at 11, went to bed about 12.
Wednesday
Got up at 8:00am. Left at about 10:00am- picked up a large wad of cash at the bank, then headed off to Antrim, NH. I had seen a guy trying to sell several computers on craigslist for awhile and I finally emailed him and started haggling over a group price. After a lot of going back and forth, we decided I would just and settle the price once we got there. Obviously, both of us thought this would be in our favor. Obviously, one of us was wrong.
Sadly, I think I was the loser here.
1. I had committed to driving there (about an hour and ten minutes both ways), so I wanted to leave with something. No longer did I have the advantage of no connection, where I could take it or leave it indifferently. I had already invested time and gas into it, so that would affect my decision.
2. The stuff was all newer hardware. It was still used, but it was way better then scrap. Pentium 4 stuff. I have never really flipped this kind of thing before.
3. The guy was firm as a rock with his price. I barely got him down at all.
Some of the stuff I from the Craigslist guy in Antrim.
Hopefully I can flip the stuff, or I'm out a sizeable amount of cash. I'm working on it... we'll see. If not, hey- another expensive lesson. As much as I love an education though, I really would have rather bought a car instead...
Went to work at 3. I made my first almost major mistake. There is this ONE file that I check around 3:30 every day. I go in, check for it, then start a script that sends it out to another company. I record how long it was, wait for them to send a report back to us, then print it out. The report should say "no errors" and if it does I staple it to a form, put an initial and I'm done for that check. Simple stuff.
Well, when I first learned to do this, the guy who taught me showed me that he also checked the bottom of the file to see if it also said "no errors". Every other day I did this. Today, I did not. At 9:00 something the company called because they had just realized that their server had run out of room and never got the file all the way. Thats bad on their end, but we should have realized that right after we sent it out. I went back and looked at the print out... at the top it said "no errors" ant the bottom it had a specific error. Oi. Not cool. I worked with the other company to get the file resent and and had to write an email to the morning team explaining what happened. Got out as usual at 11, came home, ordered lunch for thursday via email (explained below) and got to bed.
Thursday
Got up at 8Am. At about 10:00 I got a call from a friend who told me the church was throwing away two EKG machines in if I didn't want them. I told him I did. I got there at about 11:20, loaded the two machines (which actually turned out to be EEG machines) into my truck and was off to my next meeting.
The two machines loaded into my truck. This ballance of this is even sketchier then it looks... Thanks to an invite from my economics teacher, I have been going to these Business networking lunches in Manchester since last week. Every Thursday, people from all these businesses from around the Granite state get together, eat lunch, talk about their businesses and socialize. Basically the idea is that by establishing relationships with each other eventually everyone gets good referrals- not just from each other, but from people that everyone in the group comes in contact with. They only allow one person from each niche join so it is really a great deal for everyone involved. They didn't have a recycling broker niche yet, and I was formally accepted into the group on this fine thursday.
After the meeting ended at 1:00pm, I shot out to pick up some servers from a guy I met through craigslist. Over the past month or so I have bought out his entire collection (about 90) of PCs and sold them out to my scrap contact. The first 20 I bought I lost money on. The next 20 I made a solid trade with and the one after that I made over 200% profit. This time, I was picking up servers and he haggled me a bit on the price. There were only about 10 of them, but it was a challenge to get them all in the truck around the giant EEG machines. I ended up putting a lot of them behind my seats and about 4 on the passenger seat. The truck was loaded.
After loading up there, I turned around and shot off towards Smitty's new place. Smitty- or "Slick Smitty"- is the nick name for the guy who I usually sell electronics and computer scrap too. His real name is Sean, but when I first met him I thought he looked like a new york watch dealer... I told this to Jim who later referred to him as Slick Smitty, and the name stuck.
I got there at about 2:10ish and unloaded all the PCs. I bought them for $100. At 25 cents a pound, I sold them for $160. Not bad... at least it was a quick flip. The guy that was unloading the stuff started eyeballing the EEG machines.
Look at all those purty switches and knobs...
"Interested in these?" I asked.
"Well yeah I am pretty sure we are... don't know how to price them though, never done an EKG before."
We proceeded to agree that I could store one there and I would talk to Smitty about price later. It solved the problem of the big machines rattling against another in my truck and falling out, since I could lay the remaining unit down on its side. I then realized that it was 2:40 and I was still in Auburn. I got in the vehicle and shot out like a rocket, trying desperately to make it to [AwesomeCo] before 3:00.
On the way I got a call from Leah.
"Can you drop me off after the movie tonight?"
My mind pulled a blank for half a sec, then I realized that I was going to the midnight showing of Spiderman 3 with her and other friends.
"Yeah, no problem."
Shoot, I thought
I better buy my ticket.
I went down 93 much faster then I would advise anyone going in my ailing truck, but with my file checking goof last night this was NOT the day to be late. I got there only a few minutes late and no one seemed to care. I was a bit tense for a bit, running through my checks and checking my email. After things calmed down, I bought my ticket. Then Abi decided to join so I bought them again. This was all fine... until I left.
I started the truck up and was about to peel out when I noticed a weird feeling... a kinda dragging, tilting feeling. I stopped the vehicle and looked out to see exactly what I was hoping it wasn't: A flat. Greeeat.....
I called up Abi and ordered an extraction. She laughed, but complied and got over double quick.
FridayLong story short, we saw the movie (it was good), but then Jarin had to stay at my place because he couldn't drive home after 1. This is fine and good but for some reason we ended up having more tea and talking in lou of sleep. I got to sleep at about 4am. I got up at 7:40am, a bit panicked- I wanted to be in Deerfield by 9:00am.
I was going to an event called NEAR-fest- basically an amateur radio festival and general geek swap fest/flee market. I had gone to an event called "HOSStraders" last year which was very similar, but this event has basically taken its place. Jim found out about each of them. He also found that on the forums, people were discussing what to do with the spare electronics and things left over.
As you may have figured out, I had some ideas. I offered them a solution and I talked to the organizers. As a show of good faith, I got there early Friday Morning (the first day of the festival) even though I didn't get any scrap. Jarin came with me that day, and I picked up Anders as well. It was a good time. Went back and worked at awesome co. at 3. Got to bed late again.
Saturday
I wanted to get up early this day so I could go replace the tire on my truck and still be in Deerfield by 9 for day two of the flea market, so I set my alarm to 7. My body had other plans- I woke around 8ish. Semi panic strucken, I got dropped off at the parking lot of [AwesomeCo] and finnished the job. Talked to a coworker I haven't seen in since I left the graveyard shift, then went back home. It was past 9 by now and I just accepted the fact that I'd be late.
Called up Jim and Brandon and we eventually met up and caravaned out of Londonderry- it was pretty crazy: Two 15 passenger vans with the seats taken out, on our way to get us some junk. With those two beasts we could have singlehandedly shut down 93 if we wanted.
Anyway, much longer story somewhat shorter, I ended up taking more then half of the electronic scrap. We filled both vehicles. We probably could have packed one of them to the top if it wasn't for our scrap lord rivals- the enemy in his giant truck, having others go around for him on a tractor picking up stuff. We would see the little JohnDeere operated by the cleanup staff and try to beat it to the good stuff. Or if the other guy wasn't around when the tractor came by, we'd just help them unload it into our vehicle. At first I wasn't so gutsy, because I was under the assumption that we were going to do some sort of civil "split the bounty 50/50" type of thing because of a previous oral arrangement. But after I finally talked to a coordinator and he said it was pretty much every man for himself, I knew what to do. We drove around that place like the scrap ninjas- One of us would patrol the grounds with the vehicle, then when we would see something we would barely stop the vehicle before the other two would jump out and grab the target, throw it in the van, jump back in and speed away before anyone else was the wiser. This was not with out danger:
Brandon was a bit new to the acceleration characteristics and apparently thought the van wasn't going to take him seriously when he stepped on the gas. It did. I having no warning, flew back screaming while desperately trying to find something to hold onto and landed on a military grade "radio fax machine" machine just long enough to tear my shorts and start to cry out in suprise and pain. Hearing this, Brandon slammed on the brake which thankfully saved me from further damage by throwing me back on my feet, at which point I was able to catch a passing seatbelt and die. The whole thing lasted only a few seconds but was the source of endless jokes for the rest of the evening.
Got back to my place at about 5 or 6 and unloaded both vehicles. Thats a story in itself- suffice to say, between our two vans and my truck we heavily damaged the cosmetics of one vehicle and invented a new budget dumping method with another. Stay tuned for that- Youtube videos should follow.
After this I went with Brandon and Jim to his house where we... looked...at some stuff from his work. IT WAS REALLY COOL- wish I could tell you guys about it. I am part of a semi paranoid company so I can sympathize with Brandon's and their wishes not to run on about this stuff, but its really a shame. You all would enjoy it, I'll just say that.
*looks around *
I hope I haven't said to much...
_--__-_
And that my friends, was last week. In
closing, and to thank those of you who got this far, here is a picture of a "Shatter proof blade" that I shattered while cutting through a transformer. Enjoy.
Beautiful, ain't she? I'm not 100 percent sure of her name right now- perhaps the U.S.S. Capitalist, or maybe Interceptor. I dunno. Suggestions are welcome. What I do know is she is my friend, and I think were going to have a great relationship.
See, doesn't he just look as happy as a pig in the mud here? And thats AFTER he knocked off his front license plate...
Okay actually he's just behind the gate that surrounds our pool. And he wasn't in detention- he was helping me out with some computers:
I like this one...for some reason the candid-ness makes me think of a sasquatch sighting or something...
