Everybody faces the same decisions as they advance in age – behavior that was fun when you were younger (excessive drug and alcohol intake, indiscriminate sexual encounters with the powerfully magnetic and questionably sane, residing in shitholes with hygiene-averse scumbags) can’t continue when you get older or else the death march gets accelerated. Mature people learn over time how to structure their lives in such a way that the likelihood of dying is minimized. Eventually the menu of fun items that won’t instantly kill you is reduced to a small selection of spicy entrees, then a zesty appetizer or two, then a glass of water and a spoon (because forks and knives could cut your terrifyingly translucent skin, you decrepit old coot.) – Steven Hyden, “Your Favorite Band is Killing Me”

I’ve spend the last 2 days recovering from an alcohol induced hangover from a Memorial Day Party. This process even had me miss the opener of Center City Sips which is usually a highlight to the mid week. However, as I age, reconstruction to my normal life doesn’t occur as quick as it did in the past.

If you watched my videos on Friday, you’d know I didn’t enter the weekend in the best condition. The hangover effects only worsened as my day went on. The alternator in car, which had 63,000 miles, failed and this leads to all electric functions in your car to die. I failed in my efforts to jump it because the battery pack I was using wasn’t fully charged. I learned this on Tuesday when I spent $95.00 for a service call and Triple A jumped it within 2 seconds doing it the exact same way I tried. With my car failing and me on Friday, and my needing to get to the Pocono’s to join my family, I rented a neon blue Dodge Charger, the ultimate D-Bag vehicle. Money wasted and not the best start to the weekend.

I spent two quiet days with my family and will give Sam a shout out for putting a 50 yard shot within 1 ft of the pin on hole one. I left the mountains on Sunday to party with Evan and company on Memorial Day. A good time was had by all but it left me debilitated on Monday. I was pretty much bed stricken all day.

These last few days have been drinking as much water as possible and exercising to get back on track. My foot is bothering me slightly which is curtailing my training for the mile trial which will happen in near time. I wanted to get this blog post in though to keep the daily checkers satisfied. New posts to follow.

Although the 2 videos were humorous, I took them down to save face for future who knows what. I’m hurting a bit from Memorial Day so I don’t plan on posting until I feel up to snuff.

Sad day in the universe. I can’t remember exactly when he stopped blogging but I was always hopeful the Goodies would make a comeback. It’s safe to say that all optimism has faded. I wrote this post about 2 years ago when Gourlay was on day 19.

The 2 Best Friends

Blogging is a zero reward job. Most people can’t hack it and that’s understandable. The peculiar part for me is that Gourlay actually received praise for his blog. I have to beg for praise and he would get it organically. I’m not sure if it’s apathy or he’s far too busy making big bucks with the Kickers (Sam might have told me he moved on) but the Goodies was always a daily check for me.

So without further ado, the Goodies has been removed permanently as we lay rest to another blogger.

A tremendous scene to start off this post. One trend I’ve noticed recently is people not getting enough money for what they perceive is a fair asking price. Since I’ve been in a business of wheeling and dealing on a daily basis, I see a lot of transactions. There is an urge to want to sell an item or service for the lowest (and presumably fairest) price but this is usually not the smartest way to go. Some examples:

• A girl, who is friends with Jeff, takes care of people’s dogs as a side business when they go on vacation. The transaction is brokered by a website and she collects $30 dollars a day for watching a person’s dog. I assume her reputation is pristine and has developed a fine rating from the site. My thought is that 30 bucks is hardly compensation for having a dog invade your daily life. Me, not being a dog owner, probably looks at this as a bigger deal than it is but I’d want $50 bucks a day min to walk a dog and clean up after it if accidents occur. Even that seems generous to me.
• My main man Wayne asked me to sell his dining room set on Ebay. Being a nice guy, I said I would. He wanted to sell a 5 piece set that included a china closet, a server, custom table pads, and some chairs for $580. I don’t know shit about furniture but I know it’s big and probably costs a lot. In my own mind, and going by this idea that the blog is about, I put it up there for $690. Anyone want to buy it?
• I needed to order more Stortz T-shirts so I called up Custom Ink and said I’m looking to buy 60 shirts but I can’t pay $12.45 each, let me know what you can do. She came back and said we can lower the price by $50. I said, “thank you.” What she didn’t know, is that I most certainly could pay $12.45 each but I didn’t want to. If she stood pat, most likely I would have bought them anyway, thus proving my point.

Money is relative. To someone who has negative money, any positive dollar amount is a lot of money. To someone who has a million dollars, they spend hundreds of dollars like people spend 1 dollar. Everyone has their own perception but what I’ve learned is that price is only half the battle. People care more about getting the correct product or having it done right and are willing to pay more for it. Now don’t forget this when you go into your next transaction involving money. Straight Cash Homey!