jyl

Where were we?

Let’s see, it was Feb 1, shortly after my last post in this thread. I quit my job. Opened my own office. Started nervously watching my cashflow.

Oh, I also began picking up a few like things just in case - like, two gallons of hand sanitizer, a couple gallons of spray sanitizer concentrate, several respirators with filters, nitrile gloves, a UV-C light bulb - you know, just in case that little thing got here from Wuhan.

My wife, conscious that her husband had just sent the family income to zero, chastized me for spending money on paranoid fripperies. Later: yes, dear, you may apologize some more.

Anyway, there I was, furnishing my tiny office in an old building, thinking I probably had less square footage than Sam Spade and What Was His Name Marlow had for their low rent detective firm in The Maltese Falcon, buying used furniture, refinishing a conference table, setting up a computer, preparing to teach myself bookkeeping, waiting for the phone to ring, when

The

Bottom

Fell

Out

And all thoughts of finishing the Parallel Universe Look went to the end of the queue.

* * * Three Months Pass * * *

Here we are, having gaily skipped over three of the most interesting, stressful and exhilarating months I’ve experienced since 2008.

I’m still in business, above breakeven at a business level and about two months, based on reasonable projections, from being roughly even with my past income as a W2 employee. The little office has become a familiar place, and I’ve pretty much had the old building to myself for the past several weeks.
One kid is has taken over the house for his spring term studies, apparently his childhood bedroom and the attic aren’t enough, now he’s got his stuff all over the foyer too. The other kid got back to Oregon in time to rescue her supplies from the university art studios before they were locked up, and has converted their shared college apartment into her art studio. I’m not supposed to tell her brother that she’s using his bedroom for storage and he’ll have to sleep in the couch if he “visits”. My wife has mastered food delivery orders, quick masked runs through the foodservice store, and is now packing up the kitchen with the idea that I’ll start remodeling it, as if I suddenly have spare time to match her stir-craziness.

The Look is . . . done.

Not 100%, but 98%. The remaining work is to glue on the tubulars, take a test ride, and cut off the excess from the innicycle stem from @joejack951

I’ll post pictures on the first ride, but here is a tidbit of information: take a 753 frameset, build it up with a carbon Campagnolo group, HED carbon rims, tubulars, and you have a 18.24 lb bike.

A little underwhelming, but I think I can still shave off 0.241 lb.

I do have some time. I hear that in the Parallel Universe, as in ours, the Tour de France won’t be raced until the fall.