Madam Vice President

Disclaimer: This is not political and any comments as such toward either candidate will be removed.

4 years ago, I wrote about my neice being born as Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote for President, and what it meant that she could one day do the same. 

Well, last week it happened again. My daughter Monroe got to watch as the first woman in US history gave a speech as vice President-elect in the US. She is only 2, and was mostly just watching Baby Shark on her tablet, but I have to believe she knew there was something special when I looked at her as Kamala Harris spoke with a slight tear in my eyes.

I can mostly remember in first grade, Miss Dean's class, we were all asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Every year we were asked this, of course, but I am pretty sure it was that year, 1983.

I wanted to be a garbageman. I thought it was awesome to lift the dumpsters up in the truck.

As we went around the room, someone said he wanted to be a clown, someone said she wanted to be a teacher, then cop, then fireman, then doctor, and so on. Then a girl (I don't remember who) said she wanted to be President. I remember some boys and girls laughing. When Miss Dean asked one of the kids (again , I don't remember who) why she was laughing, she said because the President is a man. This was true, since Reagan was President. I don't remember much more about that day.

Sprint forward 37 years.

Whether you agree with her politics or not, for the first time, a true 50%+ majority of the votes in a national election cast for a female candidate on the Presidential ticket. I have believed for the 2 years of her life that Monroe can one day be anything she wants to be. Every child aspires to be something different. While the "President" is the most common, it is also the most unlikely dream to come true for anyone since there will probably be only 10 in your lifetime. This was even less of a chance for little girls, until now. Guess what, Monroe, that chance is a whole lot better for you today. Someday, yes, you can have just as much of a chance to be anything you want as any man has. Even Madam President. And you will make a seriously bad-ass President in 40 years.

Babies and selling, babies and selling, babies and selling

This has been a crazy couple of years. 

September 2017 my wife suffered a miscarriage with her first pregnancy after about 2 months. 6 months and quite a bit of R&R, including trips to Niagara Falls for our 10th anniversary, Savannah Georgia (just to eat for a week honestly!) and Houston to see her favorite band, we learned she was pregnant again. Since we found out in March, the rest of my year has been spent obsessing over making sure she is completely well every day and supporting her because I honestly could not bear the thought of her living through that again.

All this time we have also been planning on her staying home and not having a paying job at least for a few years, so I worked on my "side" business basically every free moment we didn't spend with each other to build up my sales and inventory so I could supplement us. This part has worked great, and will be a nice additional income stream.

We will be headed to the hospital at midnight tomorrow night to have the baby on Wednesday sometime, unless Monroe decides to come before, and we will bring her home hopefully this weekend.

I had no idea I would be near this point at the age of 41, but here goes the neighborhood.  

Learning from mistakes, and forging new territory

In 2006, I was selling about 1000 DVD's weekly on eBay. I was riding a wave of DVD sellers who were leaving the site, and I was grabbing all their customers. I was, in fact, so confident that I would be doing this for another decade even more successfully that I cashed in my former job's 401K just to invest in my business.

Then, when thing just couldn't get any better for my business, we saw Netflix streaming movies at the beginning of 2007, Amazon Unbox in September 2016, Youtube and Youtube like sites flooded the internet, and the fading of the era of physical media began.

I had one chance were I could have maintained my business. I could convert my business to integrate high definition inventory, which was just beginning in 2006. My distributor had a whopping 150 HD-DVD and about 100 Blu-ray titles in stock, and consumers with enough money were spending $500+ to get the players for these formats. However, I was not as smart as I would like to think I was.
Exhibit A is my blog post I made in mid-2006, decrying the fools who would make the day of the DVD and VHS obsolete. The only problem? I was the real fool.

Note the arrogance as I wrote that post. I was absolutely certain DVD was always going to be the better, and cheaper option. After all, I had sold them incredibly well for 5 years, so I had no reason to think that would end, right?

As luck would have it, I was not as foolish as I could have been, and began a small site dedicated to this emergence of new media. I called it "House of Blu - We Are Blu-ray" and began advertising and marketing it online. I gained modest success, but by the time I launched in 2008, the floodgates had opened and thousands of titles were available.

Take a look at my site as it existed:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090209131936/http://houseofblu.com/

My message here is to learn from your mistakes. When I continued selling movies online, I continued selling the same old kinds of DVD's I had always sold as my primary source of inventory, and never gained a single new customer. When I began looking at what was selling in my niche, I found a couple areas with pre-viewed pro wrestling and Blu-ray where I could make a terrific mark on the category. To this day used Blu-ray is doing very well and I have moved on to a new one to replace the wrestling that faded.

It is all about planning and honesty. No one wants to fail, so we cling onto what has always worked. 

Now, it is about what is working today.

Sometimes you have to appreciate what you have

December is always tricky for me. I get very busy at work, my online sales take a huge boost, and I get to look back at a handful of tragedies that have hit close to home.
This past week, I remembered a young man who I had been close to many years ago that passed away 2 years ago December 14. It was 5 days after his 21st birthday. I had not seen him since he was 16 when we moved away, and the next time I saw him was as he laid in the chapel 2 years ago.
Nothing can prepare you for seeing the body of someone you loved and helped raise for several years of his life. I could not speak, shed a tear, or smile after seeing him all the way on the 3 hour drive home. I could barely breathe for about 5 minutes after seeing him. Life gets in the way sometimes, and sometimes you can't control anything but how you react to it. As the last 2 years have passed, I have learned that this affected me profoundly, and the way I look at life was forever changed.
All life is precious, and the life we have is the only one we are guaranteed. If you are not happy with your situation, make a small change that makes you happy every week until you are happy every day. I promise, it works, even if it is small. When you make these little changes, maybe just waking up 5 minutes earlier to sit outside for a few minutes and breathe fresh air, your life will change. When you change the way you look at life, your life changes.
Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Glorious Kwanzaa, and today, Happy Solstice.

Here's a tune to take you out, Ghosts of Days Gone By - by Alter Bridge.

Longing for the days of the "St. Elsewhere" marketplace, Volume 1

We are all nostalgic by nature as online sellers. Whether you sell for hobby, for extra money, or for your primary income, you remember the days on now-dead marketplaces you loved.

I started a small marketplace for some friends from these old marketplaces, such as Wagglepop and Plunderhere, and named it Quest for Bids. Check it out sometime: http://www.questforbids.com

My first installment is Wagglepop. View the site at the internet archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20061108032948/http://www.wagglepop.com/bin/Auction

While Wagglepop looks very amateurish by today's marketplace standards, in 2006 when it launched it was the "cat's pyjamas" of eBay alternatives. $10 a month got you a store, hundreds of shoppers a week, and for me, over 500 sales in a year. There was a vibrant community, active members, great seller tools, over 900 stores at it's peak, and the admin was far ahead of the Google game that businesses now cannot survive without.

The store layouts were almost identical to the eBay store layouts at the time. It was a phenomenal clone of eBay built on a stable platform, with all the potential of being the next big thing.
View my store shortly before I left the site:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070610120726/http://www.wagglepop.com/stores/movieaddict?

In fact, this was directly on my "About Me" page on Wagglepop from 2006:
"While I don't plan to talk about why I left that other site this year, I will tell you why I am at Wagglepop. Wagglepop has a community unlike any other I have found online. The sellers, while competitive, are always looking to help other sellers. In other communities, it's every seller for themself, but at Wagglepop, it is every seller for the greater good of the site and community!"

So, why am I talking about a site I left in 2007? Because, it holds a special place in my heart. It was my first non-eBay selling experience, and it was a damn good one. It was so good, that I fell in love with smaller marketplaces and really never returned to eBay or Amazon again except for a few items here and there.

Sadly, the owner of the site began raising store fees dramatically, as high as $60 for the lowest tier store, when sellers flocked to sites like Bonanza and eCrater, and the site dwindled to a slow, expensive death in 2009. It was,however, probably my favorite "St Elsewhere" site, and always holds that nostalgic feeling in my heart when I submit a new item for sale on a marketplace.

What was your favorite "St Elsewhere" site?

Weekend Warrior project returns! $9 shopping cart: material.com

When first setting up a website for ecommerce, there is a natural trend to spend hours on end designing, formatting, laying out, and so on. Today though, I tried a "Beta" version of a site called Material, and have never been more impressed in such a short time. I like to locate sites like this through Stripe's integration page: https://stripe.com/works-with

Pro's
In less than 30 minutes, I had the entire site layout done with 5 products added to the site, which met the free store maximum. The layout editor & theme selector was very simple, adding products was one page with 4 lines, and setup on the back end with payments and shipping took less than 2 minutes. Overall it is the most simple webstore builder I have ever seen.

Con's:
There are a few lacking features, such as the ability to charge extra per item for shipping, and only accepting Stripe payments. There is only a flat rate and free shipping model, but this is not a huge deal for someone like me that can ship 3-5 items for slightly more than 1.

I have not experienced the full monty of the store since I only used the free account, though I am tempted to change that in the coming week just to see what options I have.

Keep in mind, Material.com is still a beta site. They will make many changes based on feedback from users.
Check out 30 minutes of work:
https://Video-Warehouse.mymaterial.com

I made a promise...

I made a promise I would make a blog post every week here, so here goes!

This week has been one hell of a week for me. 8 days ago, my brother's wife gave birth to my first niece, the first grandchild for my parents. I still remember holding him in my arms when I was 11, and he had just been born. I was so proud to be a big brother. Now, I am even more proud that I have someone new to love.
Say hello to Emily Payton Cribb.

Sadly I have not been able to meet her since I have been fighting a cold for over a week. That day is coming where Uncle Duane will meet and spoil her!

That emotion carried over into Tuesday when I was dealing with a coworker. It was hard to express why something so small caused the emotion that came through, but it was uncontrollable due to all the feelings running through my head and heart last weekend.

Then, Tuesday night, a result in which I still do not know how to feel, Hillary Clinton won 410,000 more votes than Donald Trump, and conceded the election to the electoral college. Regardless of what side of this election you landed, please join me in saying, "A WOMAN WON THE POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT." So yes, Emily, you can be anything someday, even President.

And finally, I can chalk up another year. Another year I have not spent passing out on a nightly basis, waking up wherever I landed, ready to, let's just be honest, not be here anymore. 15 years ago today was my first full day without a drink, and I have continued this for more than 15 years as of today. I will not forget that one day, 11/10/2001, when an old friend basically took control of my life and kicked my ass into shape for a few months. The first full day was really 11/11, but it never felt like it since it took well into that day to sober up. So today, I have been completely sober for 15 years. Now with even more to live for than 9 days ago, I can truly be thankful for something else.

This week has been one hell of a ride. I won't get all emotional over it, that's basically happened already, but I can say truthfully life can not be much better for me at this moment.

This song sums up the feelings of this week. I hope you enjoy.