I got back here and of course I had to do all sorts of things. I've been putting flute practice off until before bed but I may have to re-think this plan.
Yesterday being Wednesday Ken, my boss, came by as he does. Normally I get my weekly pay check but he'd taken a literal truckload or two of old fluorescent light bulbs, mercury bulbs, etc. to the dump and had to pay $500 (!!) to do so. So that was a hit and the $850 or so he'd has to pay to his storage place was another hit so when he came over it was "I didn't bring my check book because I'll pay you next week".
The guy lives paycheck to paycheck. I call it having the financial acumen of an 11 year old, but not to his face, naturally. He's actually a great guy and a close friend, as much as anyone has one these days. This area's motto could be, "You're not here to make friends, you're here to work!".
In any case Ken and I shot the bull for an hour or two, as we do each week, and that's how I learned that disposing of the light bulbs had cost so much. So I felt safe in relating to him how I'd gone through the warehouse and except for a few I know we can get some money out of, taken all the light bulbs here and put them out for free on Craig's List and what was left, made to go away.
I'd also taken the last things out of one of the storage units and swept it out and had it all ready for the storage place to rent to someone else. The units cost $200 a month each so that's some money saved.
I did other stuff too like add up all the things someone Ken knows had placed with us on consignment and totted up how much we're asking for the things, so Ken has some numbers in hand to offer the guy a flat sum so he'll stop being antsy for money. I scolded Ken (again) about how taking things on consignment is asking for trouble and financial loss.
The guy's hardly a boss because half the time I'm telling *him* what to do. We're more like two friends who work on a project, this business such as it is, together. It works out pretty well, as well as any electronics surplus business can work these days. I'm reminded of a James Michenerl historical novel, Centennial I think? There's a description of the killing off of the buffalo, and in the end there's one character, named "Calendar", who goes around collecting buffalo bones to grind up for fertilizer. That's us; living on the bones of what used to be a lively electronics industry many decades ago.
After Ken left I had plenty more things to go like photograph a bunch of thing and put half of them on Ebay before Ebay's system started fucking up and it was my cue to call it quits. And by that time it was 4AM and I was too tired to even look at my new flute.
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