10 Days and Counting

I held a yard sale this weekend. I'd never held a yard sale before. I spent the last week filtering through each room and closet moving all my potentially sellable items to the garage. It was an empty garage finally because I got all the stagnant vending machines moved to new Snack Master Phil's garage. So I have been able to focus on the tasks remaining before I can resume the road trip.

The yard sale was successful and brought in nearly $500; more important, it cleared away more than half the volume of my stuff. As I go through the rest of my accumulated goods, I need to figure out what to do with the stuff I want to keep. Storage worked for the first trip, but as I may not be residing in Phoenix after this go around, it'd be best if I could get it to a place I am sure to return...Mom's.

BTW, Happy Birthday Mom!

I have a To Do list, hand written, with check boxes and all. It gets longer and shorter each day as I complete some tasks and think of more. But with the yard sale completed, I feel the biggest task is complete, and now it is just a lot of little finishing touches to get through. Then I am on the road again.

Where to go? I haven't given it too much specific thought yet, but it has been a long time since I was last on the east coast, so I am heading home first. I think I'll take a southern route home, and plan to hit the Big Bend National Park in Texas along the way. Other than that, I am open to chance and suggestion. I'd estimate it will take between 5 and 10 days to get to Jersey, which will probably depend on how much I am enjoying being on the road again.

I assume I will love the travel as much as I did two years ago, but that is yet to be determined. Given the assumption, I would like to connect with friend and family in NJ and CT, and then perhaps head a bit quickly toward the west coast and meet up with Bro in Portland to see the Willamette wineries. I'd also connect in Portland with bCollins. Following that, I'd make sure to see the family in SF and Battlestar in Seattle. At least that's my current speculation...it's all up to interpretation.

So, in at most 10 days, I should be back Road Tripping. Care to join me?

On The Road Again

Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again.
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

I ended the blog before.  I am re-starting it now.

Sorry for the long delay, but I had a job to do.  I was Snack Master.

Today, I am not Snack Master.  This week, I initialed and signed and dated the documents that made me the late great Snack Master.  Removing that title leaves me simply as the Road Tripper, whom once again I shall be.

Thusly, I blog again.

Catching up, I bought the business, ran it for a year and a half, and have now sold it.  I sold it for about 55% of what I bought it for.  Quite a big loss indeed; however, had I kept my stock and condo two years ago, it probably would have been at least as big of a loss.  And considering a lot of my stock was Citigroup, I probably made out better owning the Snack Master business rather than the stock.

I liked the job and being my own boss, but I felt I wasn't making as much money as I wanted, and was also feeling the tug of going out on the road again.  Even if it is just for couple of months.  I really have no idea what I'll do after this trip, but I'll try to figure that out on the road.

I am moving out of my rental house here in Phoenix at the end of September.  I will be training the new owner for the next week, but after that I will focus on all the tasks I need to do to be able to drive out of Phoenix and start seeing the country again.  And the tasks are many.

My 'To Do' list currently has 29 items.  Most are mundane like submitting a change of address form or changing all my bills to be online bills.  But some of the tasks are going to be more time consuming, like running a yard sale or moving all my accumulated keepables into storage.

Anyway, I just wanted to re-establish the blog, and let anyone who checks in every now and then that at the end of September, I will be Road Tripping and posting again,

Cheers,

Road Tripper

End of the Blog

It's been more than a month now, and my life has come full circle. I have ended my recluse life. I own and operate the Snack Master vending route, a profitable and varied career choice that I can't be more pleased with. I am self employed. I am living in a house, with a front yard and even a back yard. I have a garage packed with my business equipment and a house far too big for the furniture I currently own. I need to make enough money in the next few months to make this house into a home, because even though I'm renting it, I feel that I am truly settled here in Phoenix Arizona. (Check out all the photos of my new house in the photo section.)


So, I've been doing this Snack Master vending route thing now for a month and a half. It's been a life changer. It's hard work. It's a grind. I get up every morning Tuesday through Friday, and go out and put the product in the machines. Occasionally, I need to go on a run and fix a machine that has either a malfunctioning bill or coin machanism, or has some other odd thing wrong. But for the most part, I do the route.

Shopping has been an adventure. I shope at Vend Source (a vending supplier) and Costco. It's a weekly expedition. If it exists at Costco, I buy it. Otherwise I need to get my stuff at Vend Source which is a fraction more expensive, but has the products that are right for the machines. It's sodas and candies at Costco, and chips and pastries at Vend Source.

I have been getting a lot better at this. It's amazing when you do repetitive tasks long enough, you find an infinite number of little time savers that shorten and ease each task. For example, when I need to load a 32 pack of coke into a machine, I now rip the plastic wrap off with a quick tug, grab hold of the 8-pack plastic bird killers and yank them off. Then, I have no impediments to quickly scuttling the 32 cans into their slots. Time saving breakthroughs like this still happen every day, and I am totally getting this job under control.

It's so under control that I have sort of cut down the work week to a 4 day schedule. I have Mondays off. Woo Hoo!!! Actually, I don't really have Mondays off, I now use Mondays as my shopping day. But I could certainly do the shopping on Friday if I want to work past noon. But who who would be fool enough to want to do that? I have created detailed product lists and google maps directions for each day that. Thus, I don't really need to think about what I need to do each day, it's all perfectly planned out. I guess my goal is to make this job monotonous and in a month or two, it will be.

Yet this job/business is everything I hoped it would be. I am disappointed that I have to work all the time. It will be hard for me to take a week long vacation. I have to keep the route going. But by working overtime during the week, I should be able to manage 4 day breaks at times. Travis (the former owners son, also said he would be willing to pick up the route at times if I need a longer leave of absence.) I also had concerns that the decrease in salary from Citigroup to this would be too much a decrease in lifestyle that I would regret it. Well, I must say that even though I don't make as much at this business, the decrease and the move from Hoboken, NJ to the Midwest, coupled with the lifestyle changes of not having a $400 sushi outing in Manhattan, it appears that I should be able to start saving for a future house purchase. So those issues are negated, and that leaves only the good stuff.

Good Stuff: First, I had wanted a totally different type of job. I had been in Information Technology since I left college, and I was sick of it. This job ain't that. Also, I wanted to be self-employed. I am so my own boss. I am so in control of the success of this venture. I am so my own boss.

I wanted a job outside. I had always thought of a construction job, building highways, but this fits the bill. About half my time is out driving around Phoenix, hopping in and out of the cab, strolling to and from the machines, and trolling in the back of the truck readying the product for the machines. It's a lot of out-dooredness, and in the dead heat of the summer will be a battle, but I love it.

I was really looking for a job that would get me into better shape. This job is it. I have been working so hard. I have practically never eaten lunch (not a good thing but relevant.) When I started this, I lugged each case of soda, torturing my legs, arms and back. Now I gingerly fling each case to where I want it. I heave multiple cases with little effort. I have so strengthened the muscles needed to do this job. I can beat you at an arm wrestling match. I am in better shape than I was when I was 29. I have lost 16 pounds...so far. Probably time to start finding time for lunch and/or breakfast, but this is a "diet regimen" that certainly works.

By the way, it's hot here. Really hot! My hair was dripping by 10 AM each work day. So I decided to solve that problem. I removed my hair. Rather, I had ex-Marine TP Hubby Nasty remove my hair. Clippers cut me down to a number 4. I like it. I look good. But the current heat really makes me concerned about the 110 degree days ahead.

Finally, I am more me. More confidant and outgoing. Happier and less self loathing. I am where I should be. I approach my 40th birthday next month, and it, not surprisingly, brings on deep thoughts. I spent my first 20 years learning. From child birth through college I was acclimating to the world. I had spent most of the last 20 years just following the path the first 20 had set. But this last year, I decided to strike out and change the path. I decided to take things into my own hands and I did. I quit the job, sold the condo and went tribal. I was fortunate in many ways to be able to do this, and in the end, it worked. It really, really worked.

So I think this is sort of the end to the blog. I mean, if business is good and the housing market continues to collapse, I might buy a house. Or if I tire of this business in a couple of years, I may try to sell the business and hit the road again. But essentially, I have said everything I have done and I am done with everything I want to say. Except perhaps, next winterm, I expect a string of you voyers to become visitors. From the North East, San Fran, Seattle, Ohio, Portland, South Africa and beyond...just drop by and enjoy the golf, the lifestyle, the perfect climate, the beautiful sunsets, the accessible adventures and me.

I've got to say, I am a quite impressed with myself. I didn't know over a year ago how this whole adventure, expedition, mid-life crisis would work out. But it did work out. I am in a home, profitably employed, in much better shape and in a city where a sunny day is every day.

I am my own boss and I do have weekends off.

Cheers,

Snack Master Scott

Feeling Quite Content

I'm feeling quite content tonight. I've just come in from watching a beautiful sunset. I'd headed out onto the balcony just as the sun touched the western mountains and was snuggled by the 80 degree perfect temperature. I let the tensions of the new job slide away and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Pretty awesome.

I'm now a week and a day into owning the Snack Master vending route. Let me tell you, it's a job. The day-to-day manual work of loading the machines is a bit tougher than I expected. The first day, my back, legs, and arms were sore from all the lifting. But as the week wore on and the patterns grew similar I have determined that the soreness was just the beginnings of long dormant muscles. Today I feel only minor aches and also can feel some muscles growing in my arms. I had hoped that this job would also help get me into better shape, and I now know it will. Not a bad side bonus.

I've been going around mostly with the son (Travis) of the former owner. He's a 23 year old kid, but is of the same stock as his father - honest, caring and real down to earth. I can tell I am lucky to have bought a business from such good people.

I have had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4AM. I drive 45 minutes to Travis's and we head out at 5:15AM. This is certainly not my choice, and when I am done with the two weeks training, I will certainly move it back to a reasonable hour...say, whenever I wake up. We then go to all the locations on the days schedule. At each location, we hop out of the truck and head to the machines to take an inventory of what each machine has in it. With this, we can go back to the truck and pull out all the product that is needed to load the machines. We then go back in and load the machines. Oh yeah, and we also collect all the money that has accumulated into its own little bag.

The money. Here's something that is fantastic about this job. Every day you come home with a bunch of little bags of money. Presents. In this job you really do get an honest days pay for an honest days work. I get to flip through the bags, estimate the total, and know how much more money I have today than I had yesterday. I love it. As part of the purchase I have acquired a coin counter, and when I move into my new place, I will finally get to count up all the proceeds thus far. But just from this first week, I can tell that the numbers from the business are going to be at least what I expected.

Another nice thing about this job is that though I've gotten up early every day, I've been done early. The latest it's been is noon before I was heading home for the day, and one day we started at 5:15 and were done by 9:15 AM. And I'm still very slow at it because I'm learning. Travis said some days he's done by 8 AM. When I get a good bit better at this job, I believe I could cut a whole extra day off each week.

Unfortunately, when I've been done with the day with Travis, I have been busy late into the night with other work related crap. I have been inundated with tons of business info. I spent hours organizing and eventually filing all of it. Besides getting business cards and an address stamp made, I've also been working with Mom and Dad to pull together some work clothing. Bewick's embroidery business will be expertly producing some golf shirts with the Snack Master logo, and I may order up a few baseball caps because the sun out here can be brutal and I don't want to turn into a prune. But the most time consuming thing I've been doing is an eternal amount of data entry. Because Travis' computer broke, I have had to manually enter all the information into the MS Vending Management software. This has been a huge task. I've probably spent about 75 hours inputting each and every location, product, machine and individual slot in every machine. It's been a beast. But as dad said "Do the work upfront, so you don't have to do double later." Now that most of it has been entered, I know it will make the work much easier in the future.

I decided I needed to get this blogged now because I will continue to be swamped for the next few weeks. I will have a new address next week, the fourth one in a year. Next weekend I'm moving the business into it, and during the following two week, I will need to move all my personal stuff out of the rental. I certainly feel that I have overloaded the schedule with all that is going on.

But soon enough, I will be at home in my new rental house. The first house I've lived in since living with my parents. Running my own business, driving my own box truck, on my own schedule, bringing home little presents of money. With my two car garage filled to the brim with all snacks, sodas and candy you can dream of. As a kid, I had always wanted to get locked up in a candy store for the night. Well, now I will have that store in my garage. Pretty cool!

Snack Master Scott

The New Beginning

Tomorrow I start my new job. I don't think of it as a new career, because I don't see myself doing this for the long haul. But for now, I am an entrepreneur having officially bought the Snack Master vending business. Escrow went smoothly, and no real issues came up. I handed over the biggest check I have ever written, and the deal is done.

I will be doing two weeks of training with the former owners, and I am excited and nervous. Because I don't have a place to run the business out of yet, I will be travelling for the next two weeks down to Tempe early each day. I have a lot to learn, but I don't think there will be anything too complex about what I need to know. The majority of the job will be a matter of going to the machines, filling up what needs to be filled and walking away with the money that has accumulated. Learning where all the machines are should be pretty easy, but I would have a heck of a time trying to find them without the previous owners showing me. It's not like you just show up to a place and the machines are at the front door. In one school I will be servicing, I have to walk in a certain door, wind my way through the halls and find the teachers lounge.

One of the tasks that will be important to get right is the purchasing of product. I will be buying the sodas from Costco or Sam's Club and the snacks from Vendco (which services most of the venders in the area). If I buy too much, it can expire and have product loss. Or if I buy too little, I can lose sales because of not having the right product in the machines. It's important to get it close to right. But then again, this isn't rocket science (or computer programming), so there is a good bit of leeway with respect to mistakes.

Right now, I'm a little bit nervous and a little bit excited. The last time I started a new job was about 15 years ago and I'm chomping at the bit. It's sort of like the day before I set off on the Road Trip, but then I was a lot nervous and a lot excited.

I also have an update on where I am going to be running the business out of. This morning I signed a lease on a 2 Bed Room, 2 Full Bath, 2 Car Garage house that should work out nicely for me. I am disappointed that I will be losing the spectacular views and sunsets that I currently relish. The house is in a more residential area than my current place, but it is central to the route I will be working. The last time I had a house for a residence was when I lived with my parents. It's been all apartments and condos since then. I move in on the 15th.

CuzJoe's visit was great and we ended up doing a nice hike up Pinnacle Peak before he headed back to the cold northeast. I think he really appreciated Phoenix, particularly the weather, and I expect hi to return often. Now that I'll have two bedrooms, I will easily be able to have guests, so start making your plans.

Wish me luck!

Snack Master Scott