Road Trip!!!

Gearing up for a working road trip. Wish I could bring the camaro, but need to haul stuff. Wish I could use the motorhome, but my first 2 clients are picking up the hotel rooms. Oh well, it's not quite camaro or motorhome season in north freeking dakota anyway.


So I leave tomorrow morning for a 12 hours drive to jamestown north dakota.

Monday morning working at the daily newspaper there recalibrating systems to use my film, then on to Dickinson, where I'll do the same routine Tuesday morning.

"Business" in Fargo Tuesday evening if time permits, and then heading back east. "On the way home" I have a stop in Onalaska, WI and Plateville, WI both to buy some surpluss equipment I need, and then a real stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to set up my film at the Adidas Tee Shirt factory.

And then finally home. I'm thinking I'll run out of time, and will end up spending the night somewhere near cedar rapids, and not get home till late thursday.

The changes in my business due to this economy are weird. Where I used to do a lot of service, including highly profitable service contracts, along with a lot of reconditioned equipment sales, nobody is buying anything, and a lot of maintenance is being "deferred" and of course practically nobody is buying service contracts!

So, I'm selling service contracts to newspapers, who pretty much have to have them, and going further and wider to do this. Heck, I'm currently quoting service to newspapers in south carolina, new orleans, and washingtom state!!!

And the other growth area is consumables. Lots of growth there, but the margins are only 10-15%. you gotta sell a LOT of consumables to make any money...

Oh well, lucky to still have a decent gig these days.
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