This appeared in our garage last week...

I was incredibly unmotivated all summer to do anything that resembled “work” but I never worked so hard. I sweated four inches off my waist with plain ol’ hard labor. It’s done now and all is great. We’ve been moving Caleb into my room. I found a good full-size mattress down the street and swapped my huge bed out to the garage to use as a crash pad. My clothes are in the house still, but much of my hardware, library and collections have moved into my new space. We upgraded our AirPort Extreme network to 802.11n and got new network cards for the PC’s (of course, the Macs worked fine) so we are smokin’ wireless! A cool thing is that the new router shares a USB drive accross the network, so we have a media server for our 800 gig TV show archive. One thing that sucks: summer is over.

It took all summer to take this picture.

I’ve said it before, but this has truly been the best summer of my life. To have the means to just chill with the kids every frickin’ day was just impossibly cool. I mean, is that not every parents fantasy? I am the luckist man alive. We did a massive house renovation starting with clearing out all the junk (sigh…) and doing a deep scrub before new paint. Especially cool was the attention to trim and molding in an accent color (am I truly gay?) applied with careful masking. The last step was this cut-rate furniture we scored on El Cajon Boulevard. Now we can lay around without smelling cat piss.

I rarely do a second paragraph, but this is worthy. I met with my dad in his office today (old-school scary) and discussed his markets. He said that this was his best month ever. (keep in mind, that is one of the markets I’m entering as well)  Tonight I was working building my list (salesman) and had the “The Million Dollar Idea.” Man… How many times in a person’s life do people get one and just let it go. Way more than the people who act and actually get the million dollars. Mine is so easy. My cold-call question is, “What is your biggest problem?” I’ve been saying the answer all summer in entrepreneurial mode. “I can help with that!” The puzzle piece was supplied by my brother. He said I am like Yenta the matchmaker. Bam! And so it is.

This could be the last "job" I ever have...

The last time I had the summer off was so long ago that I can’t put a date on it. It’s certainly the most time I have ever spent with my kids. After weeks of effort the interior of our house is all painted up and refurnished. Loads of stuff was given away, sold on eBay, or taken to the dump. Then, we got new stuff like a juicer, blender, toaster oven… Sweet! I can actually have people over without being embarrased! Today is Warped Tour. This major event (Channel3, DI, DOA, NOFX, UK Subs…), when combined with yesterday’s birthday (49), marks the end of summer for me (sigh). Next week, I begin contacting insurance agents to offer them assistance with their sales. The hard part has been building my list. Ironically, the internet has not been very helpful so far in gathering email adresses for me. The image above shows how I have been slotted into my brother’s companies. Deep down, I know it’s a good place for me and the income potential is limited only by my inactivity. Get ‘er done!