Thursday, August 19, 2010

I made a mental note to always come to the Motel on Wednesday nights from that time forward. I asked several of the ladies to dance until I found one who agreed. She was a very well taken care of blonde on the sunny side of forty.

We actually had fun. A few dances a couple of drinks and a walk on the beach. I didn't pressure her to have sex but it happened anyway. I have no idea why. Maybe for her it was part of her beach experience. For me it was just part of the experience of life. Food, shelter, and sex it was all part of life, as far as I was concerned. One was no more important than the other.

One thing that was pretty scary was keeping an eye on the alarm clock. The child care ended at midnight, so I had to be gone. The drive back to the camper in the middle of the night was no fun, so I moved the Wednesday night idea to a slightly lower position, on my things to do list.

I didn't have much to do, since I was winding down my bike building until I got a feel for the winter demand. I didn't mind the break from building, except that I got bored easily. I spent some time surf fishing and drinking coffee on the pier.

I began to notice an increase in the number of scooters around. Those didn't belong to summer tourist who had rented them for the week, but to locals getting too and from work. More and more I noticed them trying to come up with ways to carry cargo on the scooters.

My little bike power trailer would be a natural, if the motor and batteries were removed. One could transport a week's worth of groceries easily. Since the speeds and distances would be longer the bicycle tires and wheels might not do. At least they would look too light weight. I went on line to do some basic research. I found that I could buy used wheels and tires from the electric scooters very reasonably. I bought one used set on ebay, then I found a new set from an online scooter parts house.

After I made the decision to give it a try, it took a week to get all the parts in and to assemble the first scooter trailer. I made the bed of the trailer with the new wheels resemble a utility trailer by attaching a metal tool box to it. That trailer would have a retail cost of about three hundred dollars. I didn't expect to sell it.

However the one made with the used wheels was my economy model. It had a bed made with a plywood floor and sides like an old cattle truck. That one I marked at half the price of the fancy one. That one might or might not sell. I put an advertisement for them on craig's list.

I got calls about both of them but no one willing to put down the money. Craig's list was mostly about used merchandise at give away prices.

I have to explain a little about my welder at this point. He was an accidental discovery. The retired shipyard worker had done my first trailers but he decided he didn't want to build the same things over and over. Like me he just wanted to do things that he enjoyed. Production work wasn't one of them. From him I learned enough to make a really ugly prototype trailer.

After the prototype I went looking for someone to do the work. I wanted someone who would bankrupt me. I also needed someone who couldn't steel my design and go into business for himself. As I said Hector was an accidental discovery. I saw his rusty pickup truck with an equally rusty portable welder at the one service station in Monkey Junction.

His English wasn't good and my Spanish is non existent but we managed to work out a deal for him to weld a trailer frame just like the one I showed him. I did hope his version had cleaner welds.

From the start I knew he was an experienced welder and metal worker. I had no idea where he was trained or what his emigration status was, I just knew that I could afford him and he did good work. In that respect I was no different from all the other people who hired questionable workers.

I had taken the work to the retired ship builder, but Hector and I worked out a deal. Hector came by my shop and used my cheap welder to assemble my trailer frames. In the process I learned a lot from him. It got so he would call me every couple of days to see if I had any work for him. I began to feel the pressure to keep him working until I forced myself to remember he wasn't an employee. He was just casual labor.

In the second week I took a trailer with the cattle sides to the local scooter dealer. He let me leave it in his parking lot with a sign. It wasn't a gimme, I did have to pay for the space. He didn't want to be a dealer at first. I took orders and Hector and I made custom trailers for gasoline scooter owners. Hector quickly learned how to make the bike trailers and he was a real asset.

If I had the metal cut with the chop saw he could assemble either kind of trailer frame in a couple of hours. I put ads on a couple of moped sites for the trailers as well as on the motor bike forums. It was slow going but I didn't need the money to live so I was content if the business broke even.

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