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#71
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On Sat, 22 Apr 2017 12:30:03 -0700, Joerg
wrote: On 2017-04-21 17:40, John B Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 09:35:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-20 20:21, John B Slocomb wrote: On Thu, 20 Apr 2017 08:12:29 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-19 19:52, John B Slocomb wrote: [...] Or maybe you are going to tell us that you operate out of your hip pocket and pay cash for all your business transactions? You must either be exceedingly rich or exceedingly small time. Neither. I made a calculated decision about 30 years ago and that turned out to be a good decision. Yes, it was tough back then. However, my business was steady and didn't come and go like cheapskate sales outlet "Business" is a very flexible word but essentially means (more or less ) the activity of providing goods and services in return for pay. Thus, you are in the business of providing a service in return for payment. A store is in the business of providing material objects in return for payment. A good bike shop has service as a significant percentage of their revenue. My LBS sells bikes _and_ services them, as well as bikes not bought there. I wonder about the percentage of income generated by (1) sale of material, and(2) sale of services. I'm not in the retail business but it does seem to me that normal markup must be in the neighborhood of 30%. When I was in the consulting business we had to charge nearly double the consultant's salary just to break even - salary, living costs, transportation costs, allowance for annual vacation, insurance, medical, etc. Yep, I am a consultant and there is the occasional client who does not understand this initially. A big part is the overhead (office, lab, test equipment, and so on). Over here in the oil business consultants are usually short time specialists. You want a guy to (in my case) manage the erection of a small gas plant you don't hire a bloke full time and put him on the pay role, retirement plans, fly his wife and kids over, etc., you just hire a consultant. I was a bit unique in that I had previously worked for the company but my contract paid transportation to and from my home of record, local transportation and a day rate. The company had all encompassing medical coverage so any work related injury or sickness was paid by the company. After one year we had the plant constructed, employees trained, the plant commissioned and in operation. The company thanked me profusely, gave me a bit of a bonus and waved good-by. |
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#72
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 2017-04-22 16:13, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 12:11:13 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 16:47, Frank Krygowski wrote: [...] Those enterprises work for owners who love running them so much that they dedicate their life to them, and who don't require as much income as most people. They will always be unusual, for reasons most people cab easily understand. The family derives their income from that store. For three generations now so they must be doing something right, as did the prior owners. The farm is too small to live off. I suspect they're selling a lot of tourist stuff like gold pans -- and household novelties like cherry-pitters and iron skillets. It's great they have a wide selection of hard to find hardware, but I bet the real money is coming from other sources. Not in this case. They operate the hardware store and that provides for their family. They don't sell much touristy stuff there, that is taken care of by all sorts of boutiques and antique shops on Main Street. ... Note that having "hard to find" items is often the result of buying inventory that never moved. It's great if you're a customer hunting for NOS, but not so great for the owner's cash flow. They do alright. Like myself, their goal is not to become rich but to have a meaningful life in the community and be liked by customers. When cycling through Placerville the whole place feels a bit like Mayberry, just bigger. I would never willingly move into a town to live there and preferably also not work there but Placerville is one where I'd compromise if need be. It still has a real small town feel. Oh, and good brewpubs. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#73
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 2017-04-22 22:35, John B Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 22 Apr 2017 12:11:24 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 16:47, Frank Krygowski wrote: [...] Those enterprises work for owners who love running them so much that they dedicate their life to them, and who don't require as much income as most people. They will always be unusual, for reasons most people cab easily understand. The family derives their income from that store. For three generations now so they must be doing something right, as did the prior owners. The farm is too small to live off. Certainly. But then the kid comes back from collage with his MBA and takes over the store and the next thing you know it is a billion dollar business. The old saying is that the 3rd generation ruins it but not here. The 3rd generation of the Fausel family now runs it and they do a very fine job. http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/happy...are-turns-160/ Although Sam Walton had only a bachelor's degree in economics and started his store after coming home the Army it is a very similar story. It does happen. That's how it also was with the Raley's and Bel Air supermarkets or with Trump. But not here in Placerville. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#75
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 2017-04-22 13:08, wrote:
On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 12:41:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-22 12:23, wrote: On Friday, April 21, 2017 at 9:42:55 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 07:39, wrote: On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 8:12:26 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-19 19:52, John B Slocomb wrote: [...] Or maybe you are going to tell us that you operate out of your hip pocket and pay cash for all your business transactions? You must either be exceedingly rich or exceedingly small time. Neither. I made a calculated decision about 30 years ago and that turned out to be a good decision. Yes, it was tough back then. However, my business was steady and didn't come and go like cheapskate sales outlets. Joerg - analog designers are rare. I know exactly one of them after 50 years in the business. Charley Butten. He won an Emmy in 2014 I believe for his work on sound systems that wouldn't return echoes on outdoor venues for the wild bands of the 70's and 80's. The good old days ... http://www.clearcom.com/news/clear-c...two-tech-emmys So if you're a good analog designer it's no wonder that you've had steady employment. Yep, can't complain. However, now I'd like to slow down and have more time to ride before some ailment creeps up that won't allow me to ride. I don't want to be one of those guys who migrates from a 60h week straight to a walker. Many analog gurus have either passed on or are in assisted living homes now. I'm an embedded system designer and programmer. They have a LOT of people that claim to be such but hardly anyone that actually knows what they are doing. But they make up for it by using 10 times the power to do the same work I would. That is why there are so many people around today that appear to be successful. Embedded is tough as well because to be truly successful one has to be a good generalist. Similar to us analog guys. For one job I had to learn and really understand hwo turbofan jet engines work. Somehow we didn't have that at the university ... -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ As an analog guy you should have been able to calculate the temperature in the chamber and the exhaust temperature. I would do that soas to instrument it and send digital information to and from. This project wasn't about temperature, more about better fuel economy. However, not at liberty to say. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ Exhaust temperature - Combustion temperature = fuel efficiency. That's the simple "macro" view of things and it was the name of the game in the 60's through 80's. Much of it is already tapped out from an engineering POV, meaning the lower hanging fruit is all picked. Now it's more in the "micro" world and that usually has nothing to do with temperature, or hardly anything. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#76
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 2017-04-22 16:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 3:29:52 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote: Snipped That is what I mean. A good business, whether service man, bike shop or whatever will have most parts that might potentially be needed on hand. This creates a cost but a necessary one. The operative word there is POTENTIALLY. A small shop can NOT affor to keep every item that might be needed some time by one or two customers. Small bicycle shops have more problems with overhead and or buying stuff from retailers than what bigger shops or chainsdo. I know a number of shops near here that have to put together an order of at least $500.00 before they can get anything. that's notthe shops' fault it's the distributors. Then they are doing something wrong. I used to face the same issues in engineering. As a lone wolf EE it was't always easy to get $20 worth of certain parts. However, I found avenues to do that. ... It all boils down to knowing your customer vbase and stocking what they need whilst avoiding stocking a lot of stuff that doesn't sell quickly. A small shop with too much slow moving inventory can find itself out of business very quickly. It's a fine line between having too much and too litle. Having too little increases repair times and that causes customers to go elsewhere. "But I want to go ride the MTB on the weekend!". -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#77
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 4/22/2017 6:13 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 12:11:13 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 16:47, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/21/2017 12:35 PM, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-20 20:21, John B Slocomb wrote: In short, your scheme of a storekeeper that has every nut, bolt and washer, for every bicycle every sold in the U.S. is impossible just as it is impossible that you will drive to Oakland to check the batteries in someone's flashlight. The best proof that this is not impossible is this sto http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/north...-store-norcal/ It is about as old as the State of California. They've got just about everything conceivable in there. The fact that they write a special interest story about that place indicates it's very, very unusual, Joerg. So is Kraynick's Bicycle Shop that I mentioned earlier, which is also unusual enough to generate similar stories. I have seen several places like that but they are often more specialized. One in plumbing supplies, others in automotive. Those enterprises work for owners who love running them so much that they dedicate their life to them, and who don't require as much income as most people. They will always be unusual, for reasons most people cab easily understand. The family derives their income from that store. For three generations now so they must be doing something right, as did the prior owners. The farm is too small to live off. I suspect they're selling a lot of tourist stuff like gold pans -- and household novelties like cherry-pitters and iron skillets. It's great they have a wide selection of hard to find hardware, but I bet the real money is coming from other sources. Note that having "hard to find" items is often the result of buying inventory that never moved. It's great if you're a customer hunting for NOS, but not so great for the owner's cash flow. -- Jay Beattie. +1 And worse, the endless telephone calls, "Hey do you have a size 7 or 8 Raphael Geminiani embroidered wool team jersey just lying around cheap?" One is sorely tempted to respond, "Oh you just missed them, all sold at $1.95 last week" -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#78
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On 2017-04-23 00:56, John B Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 22 Apr 2017 12:30:03 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 17:40, John B Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 09:35:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-20 20:21, John B Slocomb wrote: On Thu, 20 Apr 2017 08:12:29 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-19 19:52, John B Slocomb wrote: [...] Or maybe you are going to tell us that you operate out of your hip pocket and pay cash for all your business transactions? You must either be exceedingly rich or exceedingly small time. Neither. I made a calculated decision about 30 years ago and that turned out to be a good decision. Yes, it was tough back then. However, my business was steady and didn't come and go like cheapskate sales outlet "Business" is a very flexible word but essentially means (more or less ) the activity of providing goods and services in return for pay. Thus, you are in the business of providing a service in return for payment. A store is in the business of providing material objects in return for payment. A good bike shop has service as a significant percentage of their revenue. My LBS sells bikes _and_ services them, as well as bikes not bought there. I wonder about the percentage of income generated by (1) sale of material, and(2) sale of services. I'm not in the retail business but it does seem to me that normal markup must be in the neighborhood of 30%. When I was in the consulting business we had to charge nearly double the consultant's salary just to break even - salary, living costs, transportation costs, allowance for annual vacation, insurance, medical, etc. Yep, I am a consultant and there is the occasional client who does not understand this initially. A big part is the overhead (office, lab, test equipment, and so on). Over here in the oil business consultants are usually short time specialists. You want a guy to (in my case) manage the erection of a small gas plant you don't hire a bloke full time and put him on the pay role, retirement plans, fly his wife and kids over, etc., you just hire a consultant. I was a bit unique in that I had previously worked for the company but my contract paid transportation to and from my home of record, local transportation and a day rate. The company had all encompassing medical coverage so any work related injury or sickness was paid by the company. That's how I also started (but in med-tech) except that medical coverage was restricted to job injuries. I had to obtain my own health insurance and did. After one year we had the plant constructed, employees trained, the plant commissioned and in operation. The company thanked me profusely, gave me a bit of a bonus and waved good-by. That's how I work and that's how I want it. No bonuses though, they just pay my bills and that's that. Except in one case where they send me a delicious 2 lbs bar of chocolate around Christmas because I kind of saved their company from some serious trouble that could have potentially done them in. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#79
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 7:32:25 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-04-22 13:07, wrote: On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 12:40:10 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-22 12:21, wrote: On Friday, April 21, 2017 at 9:42:55 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 07:39, wrote: [...] I'm an embedded system designer and programmer. They have a LOT of people that claim to be such but hardly anyone that actually knows what they are doing. But they make up for it by using 10 times the power to do the same work I would. That is why there are so many people around today that appear to be successful. Embedded is tough as well because to be truly successful one has to be a good generalist. Similar to us analog guys. For one job I had to learn and really understand hwo turbofan jet engines work. Somehow we didn't have that at the university ... I'm not sure with my screwed up memory but I think that I designed the digital switching mechanism for the belt pack and several other things for Clearcom. Charlie could design analog circuits with the correct feedback etc. in his head an simply draw it down for a technician to build and test. I would have to pull out the calculator and work everything out from gains to feedback. And even then Charlie could just glance at it and give me advice. That guy is close to 80 and going stronger than ever. Hopefully he allows himself enough downtime for other activities. I have slowed down on purpose and my dream would be if clients only give me the tough stuff. Designs where others threw in the towel. Much of my work is now like that and this has provided me with more free time. I use that for fun activities such as MTB and road bike riding or beer brewing. Sometimes I ride out there on the MTB until way in the boonies. No traffic sounds whatsoever except maybe the occasional aircraft, birds chirping, horses whinnying in the distance, zero bars on the cell phone. Then I sit down on a rock, pull the pad out of a pannier and start designing the tough stuff. My outdoor office. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ Charlie's idea of "downtime" is to get a consulting gig on another project. That's usually not good for the health. I do that kind of job since decades and even in the olden days when computers didn't do everything I sat at the lab bench all day long. Nowadays some of the fun is out because nearly all my circuitry is designed on the computer simulator. A very sedentary task so sometimes I force myself to stop the clock, do some exercise, yard work, a bike ride, whatever. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ If it's going to be bad for Charley's health it better get a move on it. If he gets any older he'll be a mummy. |
#80
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Getting into and out of streamliner recumbents
On Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 7:44:54 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-04-23 00:56, John B Slocomb wrote: On Sat, 22 Apr 2017 12:30:03 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-21 17:40, John B Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 09:35:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-20 20:21, John B Slocomb wrote: On Thu, 20 Apr 2017 08:12:29 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-04-19 19:52, John B Slocomb wrote: [...] Or maybe you are going to tell us that you operate out of your hip pocket and pay cash for all your business transactions? You must either be exceedingly rich or exceedingly small time. Neither. I made a calculated decision about 30 years ago and that turned out to be a good decision. Yes, it was tough back then. However, my business was steady and didn't come and go like cheapskate sales outlet "Business" is a very flexible word but essentially means (more or less ) the activity of providing goods and services in return for pay. Thus, you are in the business of providing a service in return for payment. A store is in the business of providing material objects in return for payment. A good bike shop has service as a significant percentage of their revenue. My LBS sells bikes _and_ services them, as well as bikes not bought there. I wonder about the percentage of income generated by (1) sale of material, and(2) sale of services. I'm not in the retail business but it does seem to me that normal markup must be in the neighborhood of 30%. When I was in the consulting business we had to charge nearly double the consultant's salary just to break even - salary, living costs, transportation costs, allowance for annual vacation, insurance, medical, etc. Yep, I am a consultant and there is the occasional client who does not understand this initially. A big part is the overhead (office, lab, test equipment, and so on). Over here in the oil business consultants are usually short time specialists. You want a guy to (in my case) manage the erection of a small gas plant you don't hire a bloke full time and put him on the pay role, retirement plans, fly his wife and kids over, etc., you just hire a consultant. I was a bit unique in that I had previously worked for the company but my contract paid transportation to and from my home of record, local transportation and a day rate. The company had all encompassing medical coverage so any work related injury or sickness was paid by the company. That's how I also started (but in med-tech) except that medical coverage was restricted to job injuries. I had to obtain my own health insurance and did. After one year we had the plant constructed, employees trained, the plant commissioned and in operation. The company thanked me profusely, gave me a bit of a bonus and waved good-by. That's how I work and that's how I want it. No bonuses though, they just pay my bills and that's that. Except in one case where they send me a delicious 2 lbs bar of chocolate around Christmas because I kind of saved their company from some serious trouble that could have potentially done them in. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ This is more or less how I work as well but without the bonus. |
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