Storms

I'm fighting some depression. Much of it has to do with my job--the bike shop where I work is for sale, and unless a buyer comes forward (and I can work with said buyer), we will be having a going-out-of-business sale soon. Special-order stuff will not be part of this sale, of course, and special orders will come to a halt in the next week or two (if you want me to build a wheel for you in the next month or two, now is the time to order parts!).

My first thought is that at least in the short term I'll be working some combination of part-time jobs. I have a couple of teaching gigs in the queue, and some home-repair work possibilities here and there. I'm spending some time networking as well.

Jenn has suggested that I get my "elevator sales pitch" together--a thirty-second (or so) spiel on what I can do well enough that someone would pay for me to do it. It's hard to do--I've done so many things over the years, and some of them interest me more than others, but are harder for me to do given my current situation.

One possibility is a car-free home repair service. I'm in negotiations to get a used Bikes at Work trailer, and working with Bikes at Work to get a hitch made to fit my Globe (really trick hitch that uses the Globe's kickstand bracket at the rear dropout, apparently). I figure that for most of my jobs, I'll know most of what I need to haul in terms of tools and materials, and that a sizable percentage of that stuff can be hauled by bike (bulky but not terribly heavy). It's not like I'd be hauling fence posts and sixteen-foot fence boards, after all.

I was planning on building some bookshelves in our front bedroom/office. That plan has been put on hold for the next couple of months--not just that I don't want to spend the money on the materials involved, but that we may have other plans for the room. More on that in another post if it's warranted.

All of this seems pretty small compared to what has happened in southern Indiana today. We had a horrible series of tornadoes come through, and reports have suggested that Marysville Indiana "is gone," at least according to one or two law enforcement officers. Six deaths have been attributed to the storms by the time I'm typing this. I don't envy those folks at all. I have a house that is intact, all my stuff is still inside it, my wife and other family members are still uninjured by the storms. Some of them are scouring the countryside for their treasures. Some of them have lost loved ones.

Needless to say (or perhaps not), I drove to work today. I didn't feel like getting picked up by the wind or beat up by the rain.