With just 3 full days remaining between now and our flight over to Europe, our living situation is getting very interesting. We're selling both our cars today, and I solemnly disassembled my roof rack last night -- someday I'll have another
Subaru to mount it on. Someday . . .
We've got a full storage unit in Virginia, and a good start on filling Jill's family's upstairs and garage with our extra boxes and things. Too many things. And not just outdoor gear, too many clothes, books, shoes, bags,
just too much stuff. This move has been a great opportunity to eliminate all the excess
stuff we've been storing in our homes and heads. We're getting back to a more simple existence, like in college, where you can fit your entire life into one car. We're going to carry our entire life onto a plane, including pets, and take it from there. Except I'm cheating a bit by shipping two bikes and extra gear in those bike boxes. And we might ship some linens and other things. OK, we may end up cheating a lot but the point is we've reduced our immediate possessions down to a respectable 7 pieces of luggage and for an adventure racer who has (or
had) gear up the wazoo . . . that's pretty good.
So long as I have my bike over there, or a credit card to acquire a new bike, or a very generous
Gary Fisher rep with an affinity for adventure racing, I should keep sane while we get to know Switzerland.
Day 3 is also significant since I'll get my official direction for my
new computer nerd work today. I'll be working remotely to build out some of their software platform. Yes, it will serve the adventure racing market but in my honest opinion I think it's wiser to focus on triathlon, marathon, and the other "big participant" sports where
the business can build a bigger customer base. Adventure racing is a passion of mine, but I'm realistic when I look at the market and winning 5% of the triathlon market means more revenue than 50% of adventure racing. Our
recent experiment with live tracking went very well from a technology standpoint, and I know future
Untamed events will sparkle with interactivity and live race coverage; the end product on the public website needs some work in terms of performance, but I think my official marching orders from
The Works will be in a totally different direction. Just my hunch. It may mean we don't pursue
PrimalQuest as a client, but a start-up business can't put all its eggs into the PQ basket and there are some other areas more promising to move in.