Secrets of My Success: What a Difference a Day Makes! (con't)
Posted: Wednesday, November 10, 2010
by Bruce Horst
WryteStuff
In my last installment, I had just moved to Houston and I had a total of $9,000 a month worth of payments due to either credit cards or the IRS, not including the living expenses for me and my family of four.
We found an apartment that was in a good location. I remember the first week living there without electricity since we didn't have the money to have the power turned on. Have you ever taken a shower in a window-less bathroom without any lights? This was an adventure!
I had spent my entire life feeling like a misfit, but now I was settling into a job at a Best Buy service center with 60 other technicians who were mostly just like me. The first time Jean brought the boys for a visit, my four year old, AJ, said that everyone there looked like me! It's funny how technicians all seem to sport facial hair and dark clothing. After a few months I realized that at least a third of the technicians were on Prozac. It seems that deep thinkers are often depressed. (This is worth you thinking about that for a moment.)
As we settled into a routine, we found a church and a few friends. As it was 1997, the Internet was really starting to heat up. I decided to figure out how become known on the Internet.
I found a hosting site, Angelfire.com, which offered free website hosting. I immediately put up family website and a website to try to sell the time-lapse VCR's which were last things that we had left over from our business in San Antonio.
In November of 1997 something happened. The "nanny trial" took place. This was the trial of a young woman who tragically abused a baby that was in her care, leading to the baby's death. And the abuse was caught on video from a TIME-LAPSE VCR.
The country went crazy. It seemed that everyone with a nanny wanted a security system with a time-lapse VCR. Jean and I set up an assembly line in our little apartment to work on as many VCR's as I could transport to Houston in our little car each week. The assembly line started with removing each cover to begin the refurbishing, and ended with Jean packing each VCR into a box so that she could ship it the next day while I was at work.
Small break here. I'm money-talk deficient. Numbers are just numbers to me and I don't have a filter when the numbers refer to money. I guess that's the autism in me. Jean has forbidden me from mentioning specific dollar amounts here, but I will say that I had about 420 VCR's and we sold them for an average price of $350 each. You do the math. And again, this happened almost overnight.
We were out of debt within the first year of living in Houston. My job was going well as I had the favor of all my bosses at the service center. In addition to the 60 technicians, there were 40 support staff, and most of them thought that I was some sort of genius. How could that be?
After being so successful on the Internet selling time-lapse VCR's, I decided to build websites to sell on the new auction site, ebay.com. I don't remember seeing anyone selling websites on ebay when I started, I think I was one of the first. If you see the websites being sold on ebay now, you'd know this isn't something to be proud of. I bought the rights to a dictionary in database format and I used it to write software to check the availability of every word in the dictionary, plus '.com' at the end, as a domain name. Some of these turned out to be very profitable to sell.
Did you know that there are really only 189,000 root words in an English dictionary? This is a very finite number. Previously, it seemed infinite. Now, I had a handle on it. I know this sounds strange, but this was significant to me. I no longer felt like there was a great unknown out there ready to swallow me up. In programming, everything was finite and could be numbered.
Eventually I started building search engines as a hobby. (Search engines are websites like Yahoo.com. Google was yet unknown.) I found that I could build a web-crawler and play around with immense amounts of data. I could come up with theories and prove or disprove them with my own algorithms. This is the stuff that I continue to be fascinated with. Some of the search engines I'd build would succumb to new ideas, and I'd sell the old ones on ebay. One of the search engines I built was called SearchWarp.com, and I sold it in 1999.
The year 2000 was on it's way, along with the Y2K bug. Being prone to worry and depression I really was not looking forward to Y2K. There were so many dire predictions for the turn of the century. I didn't have an underground bunker, but at least I was out of debt.
(Continued here.)
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More commentsGod does work in mysterious ways; at last,"the man behind the curtains", who we have been told,"to pay no attention to", has emerged, stepped onstage, center to a live microphone and is a hard act to follow...
A standing ovation!! We await the after intermission act.......
Affection,
Paul
(I, too, am 'a hard act to follow', but, it's only because I take the microphone WITH me, after I'm done........)Ha! Well, I'm no fan of microphones. I'm also not very comfortable with people peering behind the yellow curtain. Thanks for your comments!Oh- so you're the one who took it! I've been looking everywhere for it.......
Very interesting read Bruce, thanks for sharingThanks Dave, I've think I've never enjoyed writing anything so much in my life!
Now this is a real success story. Your high vibrating energy is stored in each of your written words.Thanks for you compliments Walter!
I guess you are applying "The Secret" now. Just a joke but yes, it does kind of make me think of my current situation as I am struggling to increase my income through various ways and meet my ends. I need to take some inspiration from this article and wait till you continue and open up "The Secret". :-)The secret is, there is no secret! Sorry to spoil the ending. I'd love to be able to help you meet your ends.
Thanks for commenting.
This is becoming an intriguing rags-to-riches story- I love serial-type stories-
Oh- Now I know what I am- I am constantly fighting against depression- I must be a "Deep Thinker." Thanks Bruce-There you go! You are a deep thinker, Ella!Being a deep thinker is not all it's cracked up to be- sometimes I know what the saying "ignorance is bliss" means........
Amazing what can happen when preparation meets opportunity. Good thing you used that big ol' noggin on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack, huh? Guess size really does matter. hehe Keep 'em coming, we're listening.Thanks David. I'm a big believer in thinking. Too bad not everyone supports such concepts.
Fascinating saga of your lives - enjoying this very much!Thanks Marijo, it's been fun for me, too!
Bruce,Good article, I have enjoy it I will be waiting for the next one. ThanksJose C.Thanks, Jose. Can hardly wait to write the next one!
Hi Bruce.You should write a book! This is a great story all around.Hugs, DianneThanks Dianne. I'd love to put together a book, but I'd rather it be a compilation of success stories. It will probably be the first SearchWarp book project.
You have been called to provide encouragement to other people who really needs help. Your description is real and practical with no mean condescending aura. You story is practically real.Thanks Chris, that is my goal.
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