Logan has been working on his two michael jackson moves: the moonwalk and the slide turn. The moonwalk? He's got that down in that way where kids can do something clearly better than most people can, and you can see how they're not that far from how the pros do it.
The slide turn? He's got that down so well that it's almost eerie. It looks absolutely fabulous. Hard to describe these things in text, but next time you see him, ask him to show you.
He played basketball today in the Highland vs. Highland game. His elementary school has two teams in the rec league. His team lost, but he scored 3. For the past several games, he's scored 1 out of every 5 of the team's points. So, he's holding his own very nicely.
I think if we work at it in the off-season, he has a shot at making a travel team. At his age, he's like a sponge. Give him a little practice and he improves by leaps and bounds week to week.
Took the LSAT today and it was interesting. I didn't do as well as I had hoped. There were a total of 5 multiple choice sections. The first? I only answered about 20 of the 25 questions. I just took too long with a few of the harder questions earlier on.
The second through fourth section, I did great. Finished each one with time to spare. In fact, one of them, I had about 10 minutes to spare.
The last section, I didn't do well at all. It's the one where they spell out a scenario. Like, "A city has two plow trucks. They have to plow Jones, Main, Second street, etc..." Then, they spell out a bunch of rules. "The truck that plows Jones has to plow Main immediately afterwards. The truck that plows Second street also has to plow Maple..."
Then, they ask questions like, "If plow truck #2 plows Maple as the 2nd street on its route, which of the following is impossible: a. Truck #1 plowed Main Street. B. Truck #1 plowed Second street..."
I only answered about 10 of the 25 questions, so that was a farging disaster.
I guess if I really did poorly, I could always take the test again. I am pretty sure I did well enough on the other sections that I got an overall good score, but probably something like 80th percentile, instead of 95th.
Now, all I can do is wait for the result.
Oh, and three things sort of hacked me off today.
First, at one point, you have to show a proctor an ID. I presented my military ID. At which point, the proctor said, "What's this? Where's your driver's license? I don't think you can use this."
I said, "No, it says on the LSAT materials that a military ID is fine."
Then, a woman behind me chimed in, "Yeah, any photo ID is acceptable."
(Ummm... no, woman, it isn't. I also don't recall asking for your help.)
Finally, begrudgingly, the proctor accepted my military ID.
She was a cranky old bird. There were two other proctors and they were awesome.
Later, I had just finished the 3rd section of the test. After the 3rd section, you get a 15 minute break.
However, I had like 10 minutes to go before time ran out. So, you can go to the restroom if you raise your hand. We entered the auditorium at 8:30, and at this point, it was like 11:45.
The cranky bird came over. "I need to use the restroom."
She said, "It's almost time for the break."
I said, "Well, the break isn't for another 10 minutes."
In as agitated a manner as possible, she acquiesced. "Go!"
I mean, 10 minutes, not that big of a deal, but I knew it wasn't like they were going to spring us the second the section was over. They had to gather up all the tests and secure them, etc. It was going to be 20 minutes, minimum.
Besides, it was boring as balls to just sit there once you finished a section.
The other minor annoyance was a guy behind me who was hacking up a lung. Sounded like the damned TB ward. It was irritating, but for the most part, I was able to tune it out.
Worse than that was some corpulent **** in front of me who kept farting. Nasty, nasty ones, like he ate beans and sauerkraut the night before. Good lord, dude.
That probably did distract me a few times but ultimately, I doubt it affected my score.
Like I said, there were 5 multiple choice sections, but one of them isn't going to be graded. Apparently, the LSAT people use that section to evaluate questions for future tests. If it turns out that the section I didn't finish is the one they don't grade, that'll be great. I do know that the section I only finished half of is one that will be graded, since it was the only section with those style of logic problems on it.
Lastly, we had to do a writing sample. We were presented with a story, and we had to chose one of two possible positions on the story and write an essay espousing that position vis a vis a couple of decision criteria. In theory, you should have been able to chose either positions and they were both equally valid.
From what I was reading, though, one of the choices was clearly superior to the other. I had to keep re-reading the scenario a few times to make sure I wasn't missing something.
In any event, the writing sample isn't graded. It's simply forwarded to the schools you're applying to on the off chance that they care.
I had to hand-write the thing in pencil, but I finished the whole thing in 15 minutes, max.
Now, I guess I just wait. It takes approximately 3 weeks to get your results back. I did so poorly on that logic section that I thought about cancelling my score, but again, I'm going to take the chance that it's good enough, even if it wasn't my best effort.
Business has been pretty good lately. We have a lot of A/R and WIP and the A/R is maturing into cash on an almost daily basis. At the rate we're going, we have work lined up through March and maybe April, too. That's as good as things get in this business.
We've pretty much turned our corner and we just need a string of good months to get healthy.
I also have a potential buyer coming to look at the business. The timing isn't exactly perfect, but honestly, it isn't all that bad. I don't like the trends in the industry, though my franchisor is particularly strong. Mostly, I really need to do something else. One big change in the past 6 years is that my franchise is essentially non-scalable, now.
Used to be that you bought one territory, developed it, bought another, developed it, etc. They had a business plan that eventually had you with 4 territories, debt-free and fully-managed (meaning you were divorced from day-to-day operations.)
They are clearly going 180 degrees in the opposite direction, now. They clearly want each owner to own one territory and squeeze all they can out of that.
If they had been like this when I was evaluating businesses, I wouldn't have bought. Scalability was near the top of my list of criteria.
Heck, even if you own a haircut place and only pull out $20 or 30K a year, that's not a problem so long as you own 10 of the suckers, with plans to eventually own 20 or 30 of them.
If you can't scale-up, though, it's too much like just buying a job. I made six figures back when I had a job. I also didn't have the downside risk of months of losing money, either. So, if I'm going to have a job, I'm not going to have my net-worth tied up into it with the potential to have to sell off all my guitars every three or four years.
I won't panic sell my biz. They'll still have to pay up to get it, but if they meet my number, it won't bother me to sell. Of course, I'll have to figure out what I'll do next, but that's not a problem.
My general philosophy of life is that it's a shame it's so short. There are so many things I'd like to do that I just won't ever have the time to try.
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