VIRB

Things are coming together nicely in my business endeavor. Tomorrow and Tuesday Ill be doing a job for a contractor who said he'll use me regularly if things work out well on this project. I have one other contractor who uses me regularly and if I can pick up a couple more I'll be pretty happy. I'm getting to the point where I'm not working weekends anymore. I'll still be putting in 40 - 50 hours a week on the weekdays though. Last week I had one job take a little longer than I had bid for and one job cost a couple hundred more in material than i had bid for, but it's a learning process. I still made money on both of them. I still made more money that week than if i stayed with Dixon. All in all, for a new business I'm doing pretty well as far as not losing my ass on bid jobs by bidding them wrong. there have been a few little errors but nothing major. Three quarters of my work is bid for just labor and the material is already provided which makes the process much easier. The first contractor I got to start using me regularly was surprised one day because I was already there working by the time he showed up. "You're here!" he exclaimed. "I'm here," I replied, "Why wouldn't I be?" "I didn't expect you to show up," he explained. "Contractors are always so flaky." He told me that even if my workmanship isn't perfect, I'll get a lot of work based on the fact that I always show up. Which I do. I had put in a couple pocket doors in the house he's building and one afternoon he called, concerned because one had come off the track (once you install and trim out a pocket door it's next to impossible to get to the track). I was on a different job that day, but by the time he showed up the next morning, I had already gone to the house and fixed the door. That's my biggest goal. To be a reliable contractor. Probably overcompensating for being an unreliable person most of my life.

So in commemoration of the start of my business I got myself a new tattoo today. It's a tape measure on my upper right arm that has the tape run all the way down my arm. Where the logo would be on the tape it says "O'Neal Building Group". It's awesome to the max! Oh! And the inch are accurate! SWEETCAKE!