An Opening

So I decided to create this blog at the urging of my brother, and because sometimes time becomes available during the day.

Let me introduce this blog then. In the last year, I have become a bit of an ebay junkie. I started buying books in lots on ebay, with the sole purpose of selling them back to people, individually, on half.com and amazon.com. This may not sound as if it would offer much in the line of income, but it does surprisingly well. I started with a modest investment to buy some medical books and mental health books, and the results were OK. Took a little bit of time, but slowly I sold a few to come back to even. Then, the big break happened. In April, my mom wanted my bro and I to clean out the ol' bedroom. Not for the faint of heart. In the process, my brother decided that he didn't want some of his old graphic novels (superman, spiderman, those types of things but longer than comics). So, I put up about 12 of his books in early May, and by the end of May, most of them sold, for an average of about $5 per book. Again, this may not sound like a big deal, but the sites include an allowance for shipping. And if one buys all their stamps ahead of time, for any book less than a pound, shipping consists of stamps and a mailbox. Not too hard.

After these books, I decided to put some money into buying larger lots of graphic novels (mostly batman). In total, I have sold approximately 150 books, ranging from books on arthritis to a free giveaway to my newest Playboy subscription, to several school text books. While I have not yet made a fortune, I have continued to buy larger lots of books, with the thoughts of cashing in someday to buy a liquidated lot from a dealer.

Now ebay Phase II is the possible opening of an ebay store. Details to follow.

For the other subject in this blog, I think my mom summarizes it best. She mentioned one time that if there was a phrase that summarized my life, it might be "that's not fair". I have always been one to stand up, and tell someone what they are doing is not fair. Whether it was directly affecting me, someone I knew, or even a total stranger. I think mostly, it is either to prove a point, or to defend a principle alone. One way or the other, it has led to many an interesting story in my life. I frequently will write to companies about products I have purchased, and give them feedback. I want to share some of those results, and see what results others have seen. I can collect these ideas and we can get a good feel for which companies actually care about customers, and which ones just try to take your first dollar, and no interest in return business.

So, those are my intial thoughts here. I will try to write some ideas out over lunch breaks, etc. Looking forward to sharing some ideas and stories.