The picture says it all, I'm afraid. I'm not one for drama but it feels like I haven't touched my wagon in a dog's age and everything's getting ready to collapse. Had a booming business for several years that now somehow just ain't. No reason to complain though. We're scraping by. Lots of folks are worse off than me. I don't get around here much anymore. I only pop in when I find something somewhere that makes me think of you guys. How have you been doing?
We've been plugging along ourselves. What business is your company? To hear one end of the political yardstick, the economy's going blue blazes, but the other end is strangely silent. As for me, I'm sweltering out here in South Texas, it's damned hot. I just take one of the dogs outside for a quick potty break and I'm sweating by the time I get back indoors, and the grass, once again, is mostly brown tinder.
That's a bummer. Life can be that way sometimes. Sounds like you have a good perspective though. We're doing alright. Time keeps moving on. Boys are growing up fast.
I'm trying to retire. We purchased our retirement home and are waiting for the Stewiacke house to sell. Fannie has been moved to the new place. Hopefully we can get back to her soon. Good thing she isn't on axel stands while she is waiting, they would look like the ones in your picture.
I'm an I.T. Consultant. These days I'm more of a technological jack-of-all-trades. The money is in medium to large business contracts but loads of folks around here just plain need help with anything with a power cord on it and that's something that not many I.T. guys around here can do. They hyper-focus their skillsets to appear to be an expert when most folks really want someone who can do some rational analysis and troubleshoot something that maybe they've never seen before. I've got a lot more grey hair than the young 'uns I'm competing with and most of my customers will take my experience over being told "I don't do that" any day. I just need to find more of them. I used to do high-level support for a company in California, and another in the Virgin Islands. At the time there were only a handful of people who could do what I could but tech changes super fast. The company in California got swallowed up by a bigger company in New York now they hand only little bits of work my way. The company in the Virgin Islands changed the way they do things and they don't need what I know anymore. My largest customer changed the way they work during the pandemic and I lost 75% of my revenue. My smaller customers are all trying hard to scale back their spending. I do a lot of work for a local hardware chain and that's thinning out too. While I am working for them I overhear a lot of building contractors with stories similar to mine so it's going around. I've spent time in the past as a writer doing technical manuals and tech trade magazines. I'm starting to get back into that. Much like with my tech skills companies are finding that it's hard to find someone with a natural writing style that can write the way people read, research facts....and spell. I'm looking forward to that picking up a little as I really enjoyed tearing things apart and then writing instructions on how it works. I've got loads of respect for anybody toughing out the weather in TX. I'm in a more temperate climate. It's darn hot here but nothing like what you're facing.
Glad to hear you're doing good. I miss the days when I hung around here more. My wagon hasn't moved in a couple of years now as there always seems to be a "more productive" use of my time. Every summer I say that this'll be the year we blow the dust off the wagon and then there's a home repair or something along those lines that makes me think it's better to wait.
I hope things continue to improve. Don't put off the wagon too long. It can be a happy companion in all of your adventures going forward. As David Freiburger has often said: "Don't get it right. Just get it running"
Great to see an old familiar name pop up. We've missed you. I took a fairly long leave of absence myself. I haven't touched my wagon in even longer unfortunately. My comparison photo would be how far the wheels have sunk into the dirt since it has moved.
Great to see you posting. That's a scary picture, we've got a friend with his hemi 'cuda he bought new that's been on stands since 84 in his shop and I'll be sending this to him with a nudge to get his butt in gear and do something. There are a lot of people in similar situations to yours but not many have your positive attitude and that makes a big difference when you are dealing with your clients. I was fortunate to get in at the start and retired before things slowed down. When Fannie finally gets to her new home and fully into retirement she'll find out just how busy a retiree actually is and it's awesome because it's mostly doing things that we enjoy. As much as I love the heat my wife is the opposite in that and she's really feeling this weather. We're experiencing nothing like you folks in the Southern States and we feel for you. It's interesting to see that a large corporation that owns wineries in California have purchased a few wineries on Vancouver Island recently, stating that it's because they see the weather changes and believe that in not that many years we'll be experiencing the kind of weather they had in California. Yikes! I hope that doesn't come with the smog there. Hope you come to visit more often. I also took a break for a long time, coming back was like showing up for car club coffee after being away for a long time, it's been great.
