What brief message would you send yourself 5 years ago?

[redpoint5]

LOL

Women have a way of making men forget about long-term consequence.

I'd build tiny homes if I had a unique thought that made them somehow vastly superior to what already exists. I don't want to copy what others are doing, because then the best I can hope for is to be as good as them.

I want to do the things that I stand a chance of doing better than anyone else. That's where the most enjoyment is to be found, and the biggest benefit to society.

...if only I could get paid to tell people how their ideas are dumb.

[Xist]

Stick to boring dancers?

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Other people's problems are rarely helped with money.

That is funny, it seems like whenever people try to provide goods they just go to waste. Here is a whole list of the most common items that well-intentioned people send after a disaster, which need to be warehoused, inspected, sorted, distributed, and half of it is thrown away.

In the end we may have caused as much of a problem as we helped.

However, if we donate money to the Red Cross, the Humane Society, or another reputable charity, they can order exactly what they need, and then distribute it when it arrives.

10 Worst Things to Donate After a Disaster

Perfect is the enemy of good. If run-of-the-mill tiny houses are better than what people have now, then they might be perfect for them for now.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

Perfect is the enemy of good. If run-of-the-mill tiny houses are better than what people have now, then they might be perfect for them for now.

I'm not saying they aren't worth building, only that there is already a market for it that is satisfied. If I could improve how things are done somehow, that would expand the market.

I wouldn't build tiny houses for the same reason I wouldn't open a bakery. I know nothing about it, and there's already experts doing it better than I can.

If I had some idea to revolutionize baking, I'd jump in.

... I had looked into starting a taxi cab business back when everyone was running Caprices. I was going to run a fleet of Priuses. Good thing I didn't do that because the industry quickly switched to them, and then Uber killed the industry.

My dream job is bartender, so maybe I'll do that in retirement.

[Xist]

Maybe where you live you couldn't do better than existing bakeries, but around here we just have Safeway, and Safeway hardly had any fresh bread for a while because they don't make their own dough, so how fresh is it?

Walmart is much further away, I rarely like their baked goods as much as Safeway, and they do not even make bagels, the main fresh bread product we buy regularly.

Basha's is half an hour away and does sell bagels, but not with sesame seeds, which are my brother's favorite.

I actually looked up a recipe and bought the ingredients, but Safeway finally got their dough and started making bagels, although there is no guarantee that we will always be able to find some.

I worked in a bakery for a couple of months and got to the point where I saw the order for x batches of wheat, y batches of white, z batches of mixed, and then Dr. Seuss letters of other loaves we made each morning. I knew exactly how many pounds of which ingredient we needed, threw everything into the mixer, then into proofing bins which are indistinguishable from white garbage cans.

Then the rest of the bakers showed up when it was time to divide the dough, put it in pans, and bake it.

It doesn't take long to learn how to professionally bake bread. I did it. My problem was my pesky memory. Twice I forgot some ingredient and the dough didn't rise, which meant that when people came in asking for it we needed to ask them to return later.

I always try to learn from my mistakes and I realized that I could just glance into the mixer before running it, verify that I had sugar, salt, flour, yeast, and whatever else, and I was good to go, but I wasn't given a third strike.

I wasn't given a chance to have a third strike and Boss only had me open so he didn't need to wake up early. Nobody liked me and nobody wanted me there. He laid me off, except despite having been a manager for 10 years, he wasn't man enough to actually do it, so I needed to say it for him.

I don't know that there is room for a bakery in your area. Mine has room for improvement, but bakeries have come and gone. I don't know why. Was it supply and demand, advertising, salesmanship, or something else?

I read about a bakery that closed down just because the owner had health problems.

Was Baker a better baker than other bakers in the area?

I don't have any idea, but he made tons of mistakes, and his wife was terrible at business and with people, didn't recognize any of her own faults, and insisted on being in charge of everything.

After I was laid off I went to an established and well-known bakery a mile away and they had five times the variety on the shelf, but also sold sandwiches and other meals.

I don't have any idea how Baker stayed in business. He kept saying that he was losing money and I was doing everything I could on my own time to keep him from overworking himself, but apparently they are still around, and now they are making sandwiches.

Maybe he wasn't the best baker in the area, but he probably believed he was, and I think that more than anything he wanted to bake, so if that is what you want to do, and you find the right people to help you start your business right, there is no reason that you couldn't do all right.

I am sure that most places that could support a bakery already have one, but how accessible are tiny houses?

If I wanted one, would I find a lot and order a kit, a shed kit that I convert into a cabin or what?

How would I finance it?

I don't know how much demand there is for tiny houses, just that there is a great deal of room for improvement.

My client connected almost 20 minutes early or I would edit that more.

[freebeard]

...if only I could get paid to tell people how their ideas are dumb.

Falsify this: 3x10 mortise and tenoned rectangular frame with half-circle cutouts and the axles U-bolted directly to it. Shepherd/gypsy layout with glu-lam cruck frame with dormers. The subfloor would be Trex composite, so it will never rot out.

Good thing I didn't do that because the industry quickly switched to them, and then Uber killed the industry.

And then Arcimoto robovalets will kill Uber.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I might seriously target retirement at 50. My youngest (so far) would be 10.

BTW- I don't want to retire and do nothing, but instead have the freedom to work on what I want. Start a business or something.

I'm not looking to retire and do nothing either - that sounds horrible. We plan to travel full time. Who knows, maybe will we tire of exploring the world but I plan to give it a go.

[freebeard]

I'm not retired, I'm 'between gigs' (for a decade now).

My plan was to hoard projects and materials and now I'm winnowing them. Today I'm knocking down old chipboard shelving to dispose of.

....still got a ways to go.

[redpoint5]

I've got a completely torn down DJI Spark drone on my desk (didn't realize motors had to be removed, 32 desolder/solder connections).

I've got 2 torn down Leaf EVSEs (chargers) on my floor because I don't have the right size ring terminals to convert to level 2.

Still have batteries and discharger on my floor from last nights experiment to determine capacity of 40v batteries.

Plex just finished rebuilding after 4 days of processing metadata.

Various LiFePO4 cells awaiting construction into a battery pack.

These are just the projects sitting in my 10x10 office. Every other room holds unfinished projects.

Date night tonight, so none of these will be finished today.

[Xist]

Honestly, I consider myself "Mostly retired," I just need to maintain 8-10 clients for the rest of my life.

You could say that I am on a fixed income, but it isn't consistent. Mom asked me how much I brought home a week and it took a couple of hours to pull everything, then tabulate and graph.

She never looked at it.

At least I know exactly how well I'm not doing.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

LOL

I'd build tiny homes if I had a unique thought that made them somehow vastly superior to what already exists. I don't want to copy what others are doing, because then the best I can hope for is to be as good as

Considering they are illegal in 90% of jurisdictions they must be better or the man wouldn’t ban them.

Gotta get in the market of converting spent stronger than steel windmill blades into building materials