Excuses, Excuses....

A WELS church near Atlanta we visited on our way to Florida

That’s all I have to offer in explanation of my silence over the past three months. That and, “Phew, what a quarter!” I have been literally unplugged from all online social networking services, and have had no idea what, if anything, has been going on. I finally began getting caught up earlier this week.

My last post back in December was made from a hotel in Florida – a business trip on which I had taken my family. We rented a van, and on the return sought to visit several places along the Atlantic Coast which would give Mrs. Finkelstein some eyewitness exposure to landscapes and architecture of historical significance that could serve as inspirational material as she seeks to produce fine art for illustration and other purposes. We stopped in St. Augustine, FL, and Norfolk, VA, and had intended to make long stops in Fredericksburg and Manassas before heading west through Front Royal, then south along Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway through Shenandoah and Appalachia, and then west into West Virginia, north into southern Ohio and back home to Wisconsin.

The USS Wisconsin. What else is there to see in Norfolk?

About a half-hour out of Norfolk, however, it began to snow – the first of the major snow storms in the eastern US, last winter. It was no use stopping in Fredericksburg, so we drove straight through to Manassas. It took us nearly ten hours to get to the Hampton Inn at which we had reservations. The next morning we had a choice: we could stay at the hotel in Manassas, in a cramped room, with nothing to do, or we could head west. Given that this hotel was having problems with it’s internet connectivity, we decided to leave. Once we got out on the road, the going was fairly easy – for those used to traveling in snow storms, that is. The roads were semi-clear, with hard-pack under the loose snow. There were relatively few cars out, and since the roads were basically straight, we were able to tool along at about 50mph. At Front Royal, we intended to head north into West Virginia, Maryland, and then Pennsylvania, where we would then head west over the Alleghenies into Ohio. That would get us west and north of the heavy snow.

All Traffic Stopped on VA I66...

About 3 miles east of the 2^nd exit before Front Royal, however, the traffic came to a dead stop. For the most part, it stayed stopped for over eight hours. This was a challenge. In my haste to get out of Manassas and onto the highway, I decided against provisioning ourselves right away, thinking we could do that easily enough in Front Royal a few hours later. All that we had in the car was a Ziplock sandwich bag half full of candy and a pint of prune juice. And one diaper (for our two-year-old). The candy was gone in two hours, and we didn’t start sipping the prune juice until about an hour before the traffic started moving again. I think that the diapers were pretty well loaded by then, too. The kids were well-behaved through it all, though, understanding that this was out-of-the-ordinary and that there was nothing which could be done. Mrs. Finkelstein did a good job entertaining them with songs and games.

Still stopped on VA I66...

Once we started moving again, we saw what had caused the traffic to stop and accumulate for miles behind us. An abandoned car alongside the road had been buried in snow, causing traffic to slow for safety and investigation. Evidently, one inexperienced winter-driver made one of the worst mistakes that can be made driving on a slick surface: he stopped. Worse – so did those following him. Worse still, they had stopped on a slight grade, and even worse than that, they didn’t have tires for winter driving. They stopped and couldn’t get started again. The semi’s were totally stuck – loaded, with no snow tires or chains, they couldn’t get going. And so everyone waited until heavy equipment could be brought wrong-way down the interstate to move close to ten semi’s off to the side so that traffic could pass.

A Church in Front Royal, VA, 12/19/2009

We left at 9:30am, but didn’t arrive in Front Royal until after 8pm. We were glad to get off the interstate, thinking that we could provision there, but didn’t realize that all of the businesses would be closed early because of the snow. Only one McDonald’s was still open, on the far south end of town. So we packed the car full of junk food, and took off for Ohio, finally making St. Clairsville at about 3am or so. After sleeping, we moved on later that day to Columbus, and stayed there a couple days before heading home.

The snow lovingly cleared to the entrance...

Business seems to be good...

Anyway, March 31^st marked the end of my corporation’s first year in business. We ended in the black with positive cash flow. Previously, in 2006, I had joined a consulting firm to build a Business Integration Services practice as part of a relatively new line of business they had opened. They decided in Q1 2009, however, to entirely exit that line of business, cutting loose 15% of the company, me included. Since no one was really standing in line to hire people, the only option was to start my own company. This wasn’t my first foray into the business world, having run two businesses prior to this, but this the was first one to take off sufficiently to provide for my family. The first business – a partnership – was successful in the sense that we were always in the black, but we never had the client base to sufficiently provide for two families. It was a good first try. The second business, an LLC, was an expensive experiment in undercapitalization. Another learning opportunity that cured some of my naïveté, though it took me some years to recover financially. By April of last year, however, opportunities had developed among key contacts in my consulting profession that made it reasonable for me to form my own C-corp, providing consulting services under exclusive contract with a well-respected BIS firm in the east. I’ve been busy ever since, with enough extra income to work on building Mrs. Finkelstein’s on-again-off-again career in the fine arts (which is where both our hearts really are...) as a separate line of business from my own technology-related efforts. We now work side-by-side in our little family corporation.

In fact, things were going so well that in the first few months of 2010, we were strongly considering adding another employee – that is, until the State of Wisconsin passed their “rape the small business” tax package and minimum wage increases. I was not happy about this, and had a long conversation with our State senator about it. A Liberal power-play, little consideration had been given to minority (Republican) concerns in the process; if they did not offer agreement they had essentially no input. My Senator – a conservative Republican – told me that there wasn’t anything to be done other than elect more conservatives (which means there is nothing for me to do, since we live in a conservative State district...). Other business owners, particularly those in construction who have been struggling to rebuild their businesses, had also contacted my Senator, saying that the new tax package and minimum wage increases will dramatically increase the cost of doing local business, particularly materials costs, and would reduce the feasibility of local construction businesses to compete for smaller jobs. The recent action of our Federal legislature, with respect to the new “health care” laws, was the icing on the cake. Not only will we not be adding employees this year, we will be moving our business to a much more business-friendly state. In addition, we will be adjusting our business model to minimize the need for employees in the future. That is to say, we will not be doing business, or doing business in such a way, that it cannot be mostly automated by machine, or handled under contract with other businesses. Many local businessmen with whom I have spoken recently say the same thing: thanks to the government, if it wasn’t here already, the era of the sub-contractor, or the “1099 employee,” is now upon us. To those who would be “employees,” take heed: you are no longer a person, you are now a business, competing with other businesses. You will need to provide for your own income and your own benefits. Develop your salable skills, your ability to communicate, and your business acumen, or turn over your property to the government-controlled banks and become another government dependent.

Dreary Winter Months are Now Over

While I have traveled considerably the past few months for business, the majority of my work is done remotely: video presentations, audio conferencing, and solutions delivery can all be done from my office – an extra room in my home which I rent to my corporation. This room, unfortunately, is on the north side of the building. Hence, it is dark in this room. And I have not been able to get out of it much. And besides, the ground has been covered with cold and rather uninviting icy snow for some time. Who would want to go out?

Freddy Finkelstein and the vocation of Home Improvement...

In addition, a major renovation effort has made the entire place a dreary, dirty, depressing mess. We’ve been unable to move about without bumping into each other or stumbling over junk displaced from other parts of the house. I sound like my mother. But it is true. I’ve had Cabin Fever since at least February. But all of this is coming to an end. The projects are nearly over. The snow is gone. The Sun is shining. It is warm out. We’ve been able to get out and begin hoeing the garden, in preparation for planting. I can’t remember if I ever felt like I needed Spring in the past, but I needed it this year.

Excuses, excuses... That’s all I have to offer.