Seems like every time I do some picture that shows up on Glenn Beck’s front page someone says I should put it on a T Shirt or bumper sticker or something. Of course the couple times I did something like that no one, including the person saying I should do it were interested. Such fickle consumers. This, of course, means that my latest venture is doomed for failure before it starts but what the hell, I’m doing in anyways. I opened a CafePress shop yesterday. CafePress is kind of a Vantage Press for people who do graphics. Can’t get anyone else interesting using your work? CafePress will slap about anything on a t-shirt for you. However, unlike the Vantage Press self publishing service, it doesn’t cost you anything up front. You upload the graphic and if someone wants it on a shirt they charge them and print it out for them. They take their share and the “artist” keeps the markup. If I sell one item I’ll be shocked.
So, what brought forth this venture into capitalism? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I turned fifty last month. It’s one of those weird ages when you start looking back on your life. All the things you’ve done and more importantly all the things you wished you had done and are now getting too old to do. One of those things I dreamed of doing when I was younger was to bicycle cross country. In my late teens and twenties I was a bicycle fanatic. I started cycling because it was my only mode of transportation. I grew up in a not well to do family. Just me, my brothers and my mother. My mother didn’t drive so we had no family car. Luckily in a small town you really don’t need one. You can get to the store or school or anywhere in town on foot. Like all the kids at that time, my brothers and I did have our bikes. When you were a kid back then you went everywhere on your bike. When I got into high school a lot of my schoolmates were getting cars as soon as they got their license. We couldn’t afford a car so I was still using my bike to get around. Funny thing is I liked it. I’ve always had a bit of a hermit side to me and a bicycle just fed that. When you’re on a bike it’s just you and your thoughts. Very peaceful. In college, again, my bike was my only form of transportation. To and from school was about sixteen miles. This was usually a twice a day trip because I worked as night security at the college. You can see my trip in the picture. The red line was my route to school and the yellow, my route home. Yeah, yellow was a little longer but I did it to vary my trip. taking the same route four times a day would get a little old. My trusty Raleigh Grand Prix and I traveled many happy miles.
Back to the point. I loved cycling and always dreamed of doing a cross country trip. Of course like a lot of grand plans it was forgotten over the years. However, last year I had found an old, used Raleigh at our local bike shop and started riding again. At first I would take the bike to the store up the street and was exhausted by the time I got home. Age and sitting in front of a computer monitor most of your free time will do that to a person. I was not enjoying my periodic mile and a half bike ride at all. I thought that feeling like I was going to die after riding a mile and a half was probably a sign I should get off my butt and get some exercise. I decided to take early morning rides when it was still cool outside. I forced myself to do ten miles a day. It was not a pretty sight. However, it was getting easier as the days went by. Soon I bumped it to fifteen miles. There’s an easy way to tell when you are in good bicycling condition. That is, when you are out riding and you pass a road and think to yourself “I wonder where this goes to” and then turn onto that road to see where it leads, then you’re a real cyclist. Bicycling should not be about getting from point a to point b. It should be about enjoying getting from point a to point b and checking out points c and d along the way.
Anyways, all this cycling got me to thinking about my old going cross country dreams again. At fifty, you realize that you don’t have too many more years to even think about doing something like that unless you plan on substituting the bike for a wheelchair on the trip. Unfortunately, it’s more expensive to cross the country on a bike than in a car. So that’s why I decided to start my little shop. Who know, maybe people will actually buy something and I can put that money towards my little adventure. Probably not but at least I can say I tried. BTW my CafePress store is http://www.cafepress.com/payallin Go buy stuff. Some of it is pretty decent and trying to add more every day.
