One year ago today: June 11, 2016, “temporary” storage . . .
Five years ago today: June 11, 2012, 344 sewing machines.
Nine years ago today: June 11, 2008, early Pudding-Tat.
Random years ago today: June 11, 2004, nice, $$$$$, but boring.
Ah, Sunday morning in the countryside. The neighbor came by with his riding mower and trimmed my yard. The bluejay has finally given up raiding the birdfeeder, at least temporarily, and I finished the first candle lantern box (wood parts only) in the new jig and it works fine. This means I’ll reward myself with a breakfast downtown. Here’s a pic of Florida’s most famous refinished file handles. That’s not a lofty claim. If you look at blog statistics, these have already been viewed by more people in more countries around the world than you think.
I took the Rebel out for a two hour run around the countryside, looking for a new breakfast spot. I’ve learned to stay away from roadside diners with a rural look if there are too many SUVs parked in front. I shun the atmosphere that would attract patrons who drive clone vehicles and seek a cloned breakfast experience. Oh, I dropped by the gas station and reported the cash error of Friday, but they could not say when it happened or the amount. I gave them a time limit. I might as well tell you the picture last day was accurate, but the circumstances not quite as happened.
I say again, this blog has a 15% built-in error rate. Nothing is embellished or improved by the errors to which I refer. It was an error, it was $50, it was a gas station, but it was not an error giving change as implied by the photo. Only the person who lost the money can say what the circumstance was. He’s got one week or so, and one chance. After that, I’m going shopping.
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This picture shows the first, and long-awaited, “box” assembled with the newly made jig. It’s made from scraps, so you are not looking for a fancy finish. The product as shown here may be unique in that it contains no metal parts, making it instantly more authentic than the original. The actual assembly time, using pre-cut pieces, was less than twenty minutes. That should drop to less than 15 when the system is streamlined. At one assembly per hour (of this stage), the process breaks even, at two it is profitable, at four, it is lucrative.
There is still work to be done on the prototype, but after this box is built as shown, the rest is straightforward. You haven’t seen the projections, but now it is certain one completed box per hour is enough, pun intended, to make the game worth the candle. For those interested in such projects with an intention to make profit (that’s an important distinction, folks), I’ll tell you a bit about management by the book, in this case, the accounting book. That’s CMA, management accounting, not CPA tax accounting. Two different animals, guys.
The presumption is that all that I can produce will be sold. If not, they are the type of product that could easily be flea-marketed to get my money back. The production costs for direct materials only remains at $14.126 per unit. I am not including any allowance for overhead because the work shed was not specifically built to turn out these lanterns. As historically follows, eventually that unit cost will drop to around half the initial batch. The optimum output for the plant and equipment now in place is 1.8 completed units per hour. This has not been achieved.
That completion involves 17 distinct steps, all now reduced to Babbage-style simple repetitive tasks. This allows enough stockpiles to be produced to the limit of storage space. And if they sell by the dozens, you’ll amazed how many we can store. Furthermore, each step is designed to be a one-person operation that can be easily overseen. That’s if you want to hire anybody, you would not have to be in constant supervision.
I’m not going to show you the sales projections and margins, at least not until they are sanitized to the same degree as your bank’s annual report. You do read that, don’t you? If not, at least find the REO section and read that. But you should bear in mind that a job that pays you $20 is not that great.
That $20 is not your take-home, and I don’t just mean by taxes. You have to commute, eat, and maintain your lifestyle to accommodate such a job. I’m suggesting if you found something you could do at home that paid half that much, a lot of you would be just as well off. I speak from experience. So if you are from Florida, don’t start any quality of experience contests with me.
Not only that, my experiences are documented, I don’t have to make them up on the spot, Florida-style. Remember that. The man with the blog always has the last word. Patsie. Say, you want to know something? While I don’t publish comments, I still get hate mail directed at you, you dumb squaw. People volunteering to drive up there on their own accord and kick your ass. But don’t worry, it will never happen. People who have wronged me have nothing to worry about, at least not while I’m alive. I said, at least not while I’m alive.
“The glass is neither half full nor half
empty—it’s twice as big as it needs to be.”
~ Anon.
Yep, when a Sunday drive is more exciting than the women you’ve met lately, you know settling down was a good idea. I got word from back west my paperwork is underway and if all goes well, that vehicle purchase in December moves from the wish list to almost certainty. It is not lost to me most of my best times with the batbike were day excursions. Heading out in the morning to something new and different. Don’t worry, you are not the only one who longs for those blog days.
But it meant having a home base. That was okay when I had friends with big houses or places to park the cPod camper. This is the point to recall what happened in Titusville when I went to witness a satellite launch. Park anywhere, including private property, overnight, and you could have your vehicle impounded and/or you could be arrested. Most of the country is not likely to be Titusville Tight-Asses. The local hotel motel association is behind the parking restrictions, and they quadruple their room rates on launch dates.
My tentative plan is to get a wagon to tow the batbike. This photo represents what I have in mind. It is easy to park overnight just about anywhere if you do some creative thinking about what sign to put on the side of your car. During the day, find a 24 hour Wal*Mart, and use that as a base to wheel out the batbike and do some touring. Return by dark and you should be okay. Did you know there is a database type blog you can visit to get the details on parking at every Wal*Mart in the land. Anyway, you see the beginnings of my plan. I’ll remind the reader this depends on my getting 100% of what I asked for. That is reputedly rare, but you are also dealing with my expert self at filling out forms.
These are the same people I could not get a straight answer out of over the past two years, so the only questions left are the ones we’ll have to wait and see. For any who are curious what the problem could be, I’ll describe a hypothetical situation that you can map into probably your own experience. Suppose you had paid into an extra fund when you were younger, like I did. Then, when your time came to collect, you discovered the fund had moved the goalposts.
A) You need to know how much you will get because that now depends.
B) To find out what you get, you are instructed to contact the fund.
C) The fund says the only way to know is to fill out an application.
D) You notice there are certain variable census-like questions on the form.
E) The fund assures you that you can decline the application if you don’t like the results, saying you can re-apply later.
Do that, and you’ve been snagged. You look at those variable questions and they could be truthfully answered several ways. Your goal is to pick the answers that maximize your income, a legitimate pursuit, since the questions were never part of the original deal. Here’s the Catch-22. Whichever answers you pick, if they are not the ones that maximize your income, your answers still go on permanent file. When you do apply later, you are putting yourself at risk by answering the questions a second time more in your favor.
It is a disgusting pity the government allows such tactics. I clandestinely contacted everyone I knew who had gone through this process and they gladly informed me which series of answers to give. Most of them were, “I forget.”
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