The Year of Reversals

To Do List:

Current projects on the languish:   The Three Tumico Terrors

    It's been blazing hot in the shop, and I don't have the heat tolerance I used to.

Future projects on the to do list:   

free for the asking.  mmmmmm, iron oxide....

I have seen those tap handles go for pretty nice coin.  Plan is to clean these up and put them up for sale.  I gotta get some cash flow in the positive direction.  I have everything I need to do it.  Just need to break the cheek weld with the chair, and get to it.

Status Update

This year has been nothing but a  good news / bad news joke.  And I'm the punchline.

Lots of sand in the air at work, and I finally decided to check again on the how and when of the pension at work.  I ran the numbers a while back and it showed about 2500 per month at the normal age of retirement.

Well, the numbers that I ran this week show it's closer to 25% of that number...  I'm at a loss.  So calls will be made next week to see if I'm mistaken or I spent 20 plus years in a gilded cage.

I was lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut last night.  I woke up at 0400 with this crushing weight of lost youth and wage potential.... 

It hit me like a brick, that this is like a betrayal.  And that is the worst.  In my mind, betrayal means the present relationship is undefined because you didn't understand the other party even though you thought you did.  The past is wasted, it was not what it seemed.  The planned future is gone, and what kind of boob am I that I didn't see this for what it is.  It is the destruction of reality as I understand it.  I guess there wasn't as much virgin ground to rip up as I have gone through this once already this year after the head injury.  That took about three months to come to terms with.  I'm sure there is more un-tilled soil in my field, but, God spare me that, please.

Then, I remembered that other men have been zeroed out later in life than this and done well for themselves.... 

"What Are You Prepared To Do?"

It takes industriousness and mental change to get over this.  I'm not wired to mope, or sit in the dark...  My mind started working out how do I turn this around?  What is holding me here?  Why is staying a good idea?  What is the best solution to what I see here?  What about me needs to change to harness this and sling shot off it?  What short term, medium term and long term goals need to happen?  What do I need to prune to do what needs doing?  Basically, a reordering of my entire life.  Overwhelming?   Yes, but necessary.

The plan is, throughout this weekend, to brainstorm what is positive about this position I find myself in.  What options do I see?  I've got to quit limiting the view, get on top of this, stand on my toes and look out to the horizon.

I ordered a couple books off my goto book site.  They'll be here in a couple weeks.  Nice cheap used books, from the Rich Dad series.  I need a fresh view from that perspective.  It's been on my list for quite a while, but I just never did it.  My previous forays into entrepreneurship foundered on the rocks...  And caused a crop of grief.  But I should have different issues now.  I learned some good lessons from the past.  I hope.  My goal is to leverage the info in the book to make smaller mistakes by aiming better. "Aim small, miss small."

I don't believe "the way is shut".  I think it's I'm not used to seeing this kind of situation as a positive place.  But I am seeing glimmers of that now.  I don't know if the head injury was a reboot into a new way of life, but things have gotten very different after that happened.  The world seems to look brighter and quite different than at anytime before.  The previous post was a glimmer of the change I'm seeing.

Postlude

I don't know if you even care to read about the status updates.  If not, I don't blame you.  There is enough heart ache out there to overload everyone.  Consider the status update title an exit ramp if you aren't interested. But I feel a bit of responsibility to keep you apprised of why I haven't posted like I had planned and where my head is at.  You have invested some time reading what I post, and I appreciate it.  

If you can take a warning from this, Great!  If you can take encouragement, Excellent!  If it kicks you off high center into a change, it was worth the time to write it up.  If you just laugh and point, then it was good entertainment.

I got work to do, thanks for stopping by.

I've been working with my hands since childhood.  Dad's projects always needed more than 2 hands, as the oldest son, I was the designated helper.

I learned a lot working with him.  The value of good tools, especially since we rarely had them.  Being frugal with material, and thinking through the project.  Dad was a city employee, and we didn't have much money to work with. 

We moved out in the county when I was 14.  Some of the projects we did before the move:  removing a floor furnace and putting in central heat.  Cleaning several dump truck loads of concrete block, then building a cellar in the back yard with a patio top.    Building a storage / shop building.  Tiling the bathroom.  Reroofing the house.  Moving a smoke damaged duplex to some property and starting a remodel.  Tearing down multiple houses to salvage the wood and fixtures and then pulling tons of nails from this lumber.

I've worked as a farm hand, go-fer, aircraft cleaner and fueler, electrician, industrial engineering helper, broadcast engineer, mobile radio specialist and IT professional.  

In college I got a chance to take Machine Tool Lab.  I got a compliment from a machinist on my projects.  He said I had a talent for it.

Fast forward 25 years, and I'm now able to afford a few tools and have a small space to work.  It's time to work on this skill and keep it under budget.

Welcome to Budget Machining.