RixDobbs.Info

I started this business a few years age after wasting three years sending out resumes on Plan A job applications. The former career. What I had always done. Only one in a hundred potential employers / employment agencies even bothered to acknowledge that they received my literary works. Finally I awoke to the realization that I would never work again in my chosen field; mainframe data processing systems administration. Mainframe computers had all but gone away. Everything about them was flagged with the keyword ‘legacy’; meaning a no longer viable technology that came somewhere in between the invention of electricity and the flowering of PCs. I’ve come to hate that word. On an intellectual level I realized that I too was a ‘legacy’ programmer. Old. Expensive. No longer relevant or competitive. The systems in which I have expertise can only be found, these days, in places like The Smithsonian. ‘Be nimble’ is the prevailing mantra. Retrain yourself in something current and quotable. Stay current to stay employable. I enrolled in course after course in the junior colleges. None of that made any difference. I was old - a legacy human being. The new DP jobs were being ‘outsourced’ to contract agencies in Bangalor, India or the like.

Plan B. Want a job? - Start your own business. OK. What business?  Do what you love. Start in your ‘garage’ then grow BIG. Find a ‘market niche’ and exploit it. What to do, what to do? After a lot of thought on the subject I decided that I loved home brewing. I’d brewed in kitchens, garages, yards… Beer, wine… I could do it all. But I was broke. Unemployment insurance and all extensions had long since run out. Public job placement had proven to be useless on any front at all. Oh, I’d done loads of ‘market research’. I’d tried selling used cars - no success there. I had invention ideas but no way to fund them for development nor deployment; and no assurance on their market viability anyway. Any launch would take money. Can’t get a place to work without money for rent, advertising, inventory, utility deposits. I spent more time asking around among those I still knew feeling them out for the possibility of asking for a loan. Nobody I knew had ever known me to run a business. I’d always been a ‘techie’. A cyber nerd. an employee. A denizen of the dilbert cube farm. My family and ‘friends’ didn’t see the ‘return on investment’ there. My family weren’t ‘investors’ in any case. They all thought of themselves as being ‘too poor’ to help anyone else, anyway; even family. We didn’t have a family culture of helping each other. I was on my own. Get a job!

But I couldn’t ‘get a job’. I’d moved in with my girlfriend Bette, bless her heart. She took me in unemployed and took my little dog too. I was reduced to house boy, yard worker for my daily food. And I was THANKFUL for that. It was a pretty low point in my life, except for her.

One day, quite unexpectedly, our neighbor Bill who’d heard my griping frequently over beers suggested that he loan me $2,000 interest free, repayable at the rate of $10 a month for as long as he lives (or repaid) with the balance to be written off when he dies. What a prince. He had no idea whether I would succeed or fail but someone had given HIM a financial hand as a young man with the stipulation that it wasn’t to be paid back but to be paid FOREWARD sometime in the future. Tag! I was it. The chain of the ‘hand up’ legacy. There was a story about the hand that had helped the prior benefactor and the implication of a chain of charity extending back into time. Now the burden is on me to give a hand up to some future needy soul. I’ll be DELIGHTED to do so. At LAST I had the means to pull myself up off the floor.

Now, the story of the selection of a retail craft brewing hobby store and the growth of that little business is an interesting story in itself but that grizzly detail isn’t my goal here. Suffice it to say that everything that you’ve ever heard of on growing a business was absolutely true for me. Starved the first year, crept the second year, always re-investing, being honest, hard working, and punctual. I paid myself only basic expenses - no salary. By the fifth year I was able to move out of my rented shed and bought a building of my own. I was able to hire a temporary part time employee.

Fast forward to today. Now into early retirement. The business still grows. I love my customers. I’ve NEVER had a bad check, nor a bad credit card. The government sends me checks. I don’t NEED this business anymore. I can retire. So should I continue or close the business out? Decisions need to be made. Maybe I need a vacation - some time off. I have no children. Probably a dedicated employee will become the beneficiary of this business.

Now, if I were to sell the business there are at least three ways to figure the asking price; There is - What would it cost to reconstruct the business - assets and all - as it is right now. And then there’s How much revenue stream (actual profit) does it produce. In Initial Public Offerings the valuation is a multiple of the anual profite. Ultimatly it boils down to How much would somebody else pay for it. The more ‘motivated’ a seller you are, the less you can expect to get. Don’t be needy.

Why sell, I need the business experience and the credentials of having been sucessful and growing THROUGH the worst economic meltdown since the depression of the 1930’s, thanks to president Bush 43 ‘W’ who “Broke The World”. What are the credentials for? For presenting ones self to future busness venture participants in a favorable way. Yes, there are ‘Bigger Fish To Fry”. There is ‘The Dobbs Device’. This is a method of producing power from ambient temperatures - no other fuel - no waste. I MAY need more money from intermediate ventures before taking that step. I have a ’stable’ of ideas, any of which would be a viable economic venture.

So what do you think I should do?

Evan wondered who his mysterious benefactor was and what were his motives. Maybe a pedophile? Maybe a horny ‘older woman’. Who? Why? Who cares as long as the lucky breaks kept coming. His step folks were of modest means. Besides the usual early entry level jobs and enduring the struggles for independence as a youth and establishing the usual milestones of independence from parents.

The old man had been following the kids life from afar for some time. He’d been providing ‘nudges’ and opportunities subtly here and there for years. The cultivation had been anonymous and done via agents. Expensive agents. But that was the plan. That was necessary. The kid would be brought in from the cold sometime - at the proper time - but he had to be given a predictable sequence of life’s experiences to mold him and to test him first.

Evan set as his quest to find out whether he was paranoid schizophrenic or not. Was he imagining all this. Did others have similar suspicions? All was pretty typical up until he was trying to get launched from the family fold onto his own two feet into the world. His friends had remarked on the lucky breaks comming his way.

The kid was a clone; professionally and successfully done in a top of the line lab in Texas. A ranch specializing in rare and valuable Longhorn prize cattle. The process had been made smooth and effortless. What did it matter that the womb was that of a young woman instead of a heffer. What did it matter that the DNA inserted into the doner egg was human rather than bovine. Yeah, it was against the law but money trumps legal enforcement. Evans DNA was IDENTICLE to the old mans. The fingerprints were IDENTICLE. The wombs had been contracted from healthy poor young women who lived comfortably without expenses or costs during the gestation. Stipends were paid. Skills were taught. The end payout made after legal termination of maternal custody and responsibilities was substantial. The learned  business extended to other wealthy old. The girls were kept comfortably ignorant of the fates planned to befall their offspring. Even they were ‘misdirected’ - thinking that they were surrigate mothers of anonomous movie stars. The families that raised him were equally in the dark of the money source but the chain of ignorance and innocence was complete.

The old man had covered his bases, so to speak. The kid wasn’t the only clone. There were many. After all, shit happens in the world. Maybe a car accident would kill one of them and cut short that thread. Maybe AIDS or some other new and unforeseen disease would take out the seed. The foundation knew of them all and administered the old mans money.

Joints wear out. Organs get old. While spinal cords just don’t heal properly the peripheral nerves heal just fine. The only sure way to extend your life is through a succession of brain transplants into young compatible bodies. Yes, biological memories fade after the generations. The Foundation that admistered the private foundation also kept the records. ….

What is an ironic twist ending to this story? Something unforeeable. Something that changes everything….    Help me out here.  “Once upon a time an old man dreamed of reincarnating and leaving his wealth to himself “

There exists a tipping point in the carrying capacity of human life on earth. If people won’t limit their number, then ultimately, nature will do it for them - and nature will not be kind (war, famine, plague, ..). I believe in the end we will find that Mathis was right. Those who urge larger birth rates are the enemies of the world (got that, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Amish,…Texas polygamists). If this old earths human population was 1/10th of the present this could be the garden of Eden again. I wish for everyone a place to live, enough to eat, clean water, jobs, health care but if people won’t limit their numbers, anything else done to alleviate the pain will be only a stop-gap measure - and will be for nothing in the end.

For any group to embrace a policy of maximum reproduction is an effort at future domination by numbers is Imperialism of a sort. Rude. And it’s a slap in the face of those voluntarily limiting their numbers. What possible defense is there for this? Can you attack ‘motherhood’? It’s a sinister-force spear tipped with babies.

Bill Harris’s Dodge truck drivers side window came out of the track and dangled kitty wompus in the hole in the door. Later, I heard that the little $1 plastic wheel was to blame - BUT, Dodge doesn’t sell the $1 little plastic wheel alone. Bill had to buy a $340 ‘assembly’ to get the window up. What a rip off. Die Dodge, die! Come to ME for a bail out! I’ve heard that there are 20,000+ more CARS registered in amerika than drivers. How many more can they sell?!? The companies have ALREADY failed. They are ALREADY bankrupt. I predict that this ‘bailout’ payment will be followed by another - and another… until the message gets through. Nobody wants their dammed junk! I say - hire all those car workers onto Obamas transition team and let the car companies go. Another hot issue for ME is that I can’t get INTO or OUT of one of these cars without contorting like a circus freak, scraping my head on the door jam - head bobbing - doing one legged deep knee bends - almost can’t do it. They NEVER focus on driver ease of ingress and egress. Instead of Detroit making gas guzzlers they need to abandon that product line and focus instead on making photovoltaic panels - things that will lead us to energy independence! If anyone can make a car EASY for Bet and I to get into or out of let us know. We’re ready. Right now my plan is to make my own Delorian look-alike all electric neighborhood runaround car. Disappointingly, I saw a movie where a girl was getting into the passenger seat of a Delorian - and scrapped her head on the door jam trying to cram her head into the car. Once again - not sized right. This new Chevy Volt - same issue - someone squashed the roof down ridiculously low! Style?!? I think not. A planned FAILURE in SPITE of the technology of the drive mechanism. My BEST car was a VW fastback. It had a flat floor to the sill EVERYWHERE - even the trunks. You could clean it out with a whisk broom.

What say you, Senator-elect from Illinois? (I bought the seat for you.) Don’t blow it.

‘Corp-ocracy’ or rule by the soulless corporations. A democracy is run by its populace. Oh, we still have elections to pick the man of one party or the other to be the ‘talking head’ of our government but influence over lawmaking has been transferred out of the hands of the public. In the light of history of politics this is a fairly new phenomena.  Up to now a plutocracy - government run by the wealthy few is the closest model to this.  Our own government has become a corp-ocracy because it is primarily motivated and influenced, if not actually run, through businesses whose overriding interest is profit. Those influences come from huge financial gifts that have become the hallmark of political campaigns and from the use of high priced professional lobbyists who gain access to our politicians and government regulators - neither of which are tools available to most citizens. The larger and more powerful the corporation, the more power and influence it can exert. The largest of these make their wealth by exploiting extracted resources at the cost of environmental quality.

Now that the election is over this blog has lost some relevance. Still, I’ll leave the comment as i think it’s noteworthy, somehow.

‘Who d’ya think will get the election’ frequently comes up, lately. I’m always amazed when I realize that the person to whom I’m talking is revealing a betting or investing strategy for his voting. “It would be irresponsible to waste my vote on someone who doesn’t have a realistic possibility of winning” I hear. That’s a ’stock’ picking strategy not a technique to select a leader. To vote for a tribal leader - which comes up every four years, the candidates with the better ideas rise from small starts. Make no mistake - when the smaller guy is rising - people notice.  Go on record that their values are YOUR values, if that’s the case. The vast bulk of barely aware joe-sixpacks will be the LAST block to wake-up and see what’s going on. Don’t worry about being a ‘joiner’ into THEIR group. Future leaders will always be heard from in the minority at first. You don’t want your vote to be wasted, you say. So you’re going to vote for McCain or Obama even though you’re not in agreement with the ‘bigger government’ and ‘more handouts’ policies they both espouse? That’s PRECISELY a wasted vote. I just wish the Libertarian and Ron Paul groups could combine so that their totals would more accurately reflect the number voters who want LESS intrusive government, smaller government, cheaper government. If those are YOUR values and you vote republican or democrat - THAT’S a wasted vote.

These vehicles have their ‘issues’ to overcome - start-up wait time, limited MPG - but they don’t have to run on gasoline, nor diesel, ethanol, kerosene. They can run on coal, straw, sticks, logs, pickets from the fence alongside the road, ‘road apples’ from the horse and buggy ahead of you… or any or all of them - truly a multi-fuel system. Why not? It’s a do-able idea? If YOU build one I’d LOVE to hear about it.

…is the developments in DNA - reading, decoding, changing and now - reinserting into cells for a reason - like correcting genetic sourced diseases - such as sickle cell anemia. This should be an ENORMOUS development. My wife and I have diabetes -we’d LIKE to be done with it FOREVER.  We can now turn ANY cells into our own stem cells. We can use virii to transport modified DNA (deliver its payload) to every cell in your body and replace it with the new versions. But beyond that - given the DNA of extinct animals it’s plausible to ‘re-create’ them. (Do-Do bird, Tasmanian Tiger, Mammoth, Mastodon, Panda, .Polar Bear… ) How about ‘make your own monster’. ‘Jurassic Park’ all over again. It’s coming - and sooner than you might imagine!

The kind of people that brew beer and wine have the same intellectual curiosity to explore other crafts; they will garden, bake bread, sew, experiment in many different ways. They have inquiring minds. I find them to be kind and sharing people. They are scientists, techies, managers. I LIKE these people. The wisdom of those that came before me have taught me that ‘productivity is the source of wealth’. To be productive is a good thing.

People should work with people;
Machines should work with machines.

Machines should do the work;
People should think.  - But…
In the ‘Puritan ethic’ One exchanges work for pay; No work - you don’t eat.
How can wealth be distributed fairly when the machines work and we don’t?

My wife Bet and I are looking around for a ‘neighborhood Electric Vehicle. There are some ’street legal’ golf carts but those seem to be limited - by law - to 25mph or less. Well THAT’S no good. The speed limit on my street is 45 mph and its a cold day in hell when you see anyone going that slow. To put a 25 mph ‘little’ vehicle in that traffic stream is a death wish. Right now, the biggest obstacle to electric vehicles is government rules. Government needs to GET OUT OF THE WAY!

I’m looking into getting a VW - already titled, licensed, and safety inspected - replacing the  engine with a DC motor with an transmission mount adapter plate, 6-10 Trojan deep cycle cells (72-144 volts), an ‘pot box’ (accelerator pedal), battery charger, and motor controller - and I’ll be drivin’ past the gas stations and plugging into an extension cord each night when I get home. Optionally; you should have additional dashboard instruments; voltmeter, drive motor ammeter - to tell how hard the wheels are driving, and an amp hour meter to count the charge down as you use up the storage - analogous to a gas gauge. I won’t be needing the oil pressure or water temperature gages.

If you wait for General Motors or Ford to step up to the plate - they’ll have something by 2050. Bye Bye GM / Ford. The Japs will CONTINUE to ‘eat their lunch’. It’s sad to be an American and be a spectator to the death of our last great manufacturing product. (Want fries with that?) {I’ve never understood the ’service economy’ wealth generation thing.}