A Tough Day for the Little People

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all. I've been lucky enough to get to Ireland twice, and loved it.

It's only coming up to 11 AM this Saturday, and already it has been one of those days that you have to have once in a while to make you appreciate the good days. Maybe this will make someone else feel lucky.

I got up at 5:30 because my son had said he had to be at work by 6:30. As I was going to the kitchen to make that gotta-get-my-eyes-open first pot of coffee, my daughter, who had fallen asleep in the living room, started complaining that she couldn't sleep with all the racket. I said, "What rack?" She said, "Patrick!!" (that's my son). I said, "Where's he?:" She said, "He went out." "Out for what?", I asked. "I dunno," she answered. A call to his cell phone informed he that he had finally gotten to go snow plowing with his boss. Finally there was enough snow to get out a plow. But don't bother to tell the old man (he thought he had). All this before coffee, mind you.

Before I had finished the first cup of coffee, I learned that the furnace was making a loud buzzing noise, water was leaking in over the sliding door to the deck, and there was about 3 inches of frozen snow all over everything, including the steps from the deck so I couldn't get the dog down to the ground. You can use your imagination for the details, but it wasn't as serious as it might have been, thank God.

As I waited for the sun to light things up, I knew I was going to need some extra strength to get through all of the challenges that were ahead. Much as I wanted to get started, I determined to read my daily devotionals, lest they get lost in the upcoming events.

Don't tell me that God doesn't answer prayers. The snow shoveling is well underway, the ice clogging the gutter over the sliding door has been opened up, the bird seed got out to the "squirrel feeder," the cardinals showed up along with a bunch of others, two guys from the oil burner company are putting in a new motor in the furnace, there have been some sales and emails from the eBay listings, my daughter managed to get her car out of the unshoveled drive way to get to work, and the dog got down to the ground level for the next, more serious calling.

After all that, it is going to be a great day. I hope for you, too.

Jumpin' Jeehosophats!

I was greeted Saturday morning by an email saying that someone had bought an ad on eBay. That was excitement. (For you younger folks, just wait—it doesn't take so much when you get old.) So I got real busy and got another 25 ads listed, getting my total close to 120.

This morning started with emails telling of sales of 4 ads and now, it's up to 8 for today and it's only early evening on the west coast. I do think I'm on to something. There are some things that are driving me crazy, like how to edit something out of a template that was used for one unique situation but eBay is using it for everything. I'll find it eventually. Meanwhile, the learning curve still goes up, but so does the income curve. That's motivation!

Thanks to all of you bloggers who unknowingly encouraged me to get into this. I don't remember all the places I visited on the way, but they all helped. Thanks even though you probably won't know about it.

Happy night.

Off We Go

I am pleased to report my first sale and shipment from the eBay store, and so we are officially in business! It was not an ad, but rather an old book that I had put up for auction in January and relisted it when I was starting the store. Not enough to retire on, but a starting mark.

On a whim, in keeping with the Hot Dogs and Bait theme of fun things I like, I bought a case of diecast fire trucks —along with twenty thousand other people apparently. Have to experiment.

There aren't enough hours in the day anymore. My room is getting smaller from the magazines and ancillary supplies. But then, there are other things like helping get the mother of a friend of my wife's to the hospital for radiation treatments and watching the Devils, which I am missing now.

Happy night!

Notes from the First Week

The first item up for auction will end in a couple hours. At this moment, it hasn't sold, but it has been looked at and some other items have bids and watchers. That is as exciting as it was to see that this blog had been viewed from four or five continents (if China is a separate continent from Europe, then it's five). And someone from here had actually gone to the eBay store.

In going through the old magazines, I've been particularly impressed by the World War II era ads. Many if not most manufacturing companies were not making their rods, reels, lures, binolculars, rifles, scopes or motors, but rather were making things for the war effort. The scope is just amazing. And just as the humans who fought the war are leaving us in large numbers (my first post-retirement obligation was the funeral of an uncle who went into Normandy on D-Day plus 2 or 3), the magazines with those ads are probably disappearing as well. so the ads are real treasures as a piece of history. They sure were pre-PC!

I think I like this new career. It uses a lot of what I did in print graphics (especially the spellchecking) and adds to it with all the online facets, which are overwhelming in total, but still just a zero or a one if you take it easy. This old dog is learning some new tricks.

Happy day to all.