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  1. #76
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    Around here from what I seen in the small town there is often not enough work for a full time gig so the key to employment is a bunch of jobs so when you lose a job its not the end of the world because you got a few others and so now you got room to pick up another job

    so its like diversification which is a principle of investing

    the Carpenter I was helping at folk fest last week told me he picked up all kinds of work last weekend just hanging out/ volying and running into prospective customers

    one buddy had 5 jobs one for each day, I ran into him on the street and he asked what day is it ... tuesday gotta run to this job !
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

  2. #77
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    Pretty funny. I'm doing all this completely in reverse. went straight through college/grad school/to job worked my ass off for 30+ years. Now at 55 I'm a few months (current gig runs 10-1) from totally saying fuck it. Trying to buy a condo at the beach but the seller's being a total dick but thats another story. Wait what were we talking about? god where did i put mah beer
    "Can't you see..."

  3. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by shredgnar View Post
    Maybe just the difference between big city and small city.
    Jane Jacobs would agree. A certain amount of anonymity is one of the good things about living in a city, according to her.
    27° 18°

  4. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by ill-advised strategy View Post
    I threw in the towel in 2009, age 32.
    Hindsight says if I had just hung on through a rough patch I'd still be skiing in Utah, whereas my towel-throwing put me into a 10 year tailspin ending in a Michigan bear trap situation where I'm going to have to gnaw my leg off to gtfo.

    Be there, be good, get to know lots of people.....be present when "the thing" opens up. Maybe "the thing" is a really good bartending shift. Maybe it's running a forklift 3-11pm at Costco in Salt Lake. Maybe it's driving fire crews around in a school bus all summer. Maybe it's cutting trees for a cool boss. Who knows what's out there...

    There are sweet gigs kicking around, but you'll never get one unless you just plant yourself and hang in there getting to know everyone.


    My failed thinking at age 32 was that the ride was over, so I had to pack it up and go join "the real world".
    the real world is fucking dog shit. I would have been far better off just to hang in there. The real world involves a lot of creeping vines that grow around you and pretty soon it's almost impossible to move freely. Don't do it. Do not do it.
    It may be pertinent to explain to OP that at the time you had a pretty good setup, like owning a house in SLC that was close to skiing.

    Sure, hindsight is 20/20 but in 2009 the world was ending (housing was crashing) and you made a decision to move for school to seek alternatives to your hard labor career after your body gave out. I don't think you can beat yourself up too bad given the info you had at the time.

    OP may not be in as solid a position. Renting a room in a ski town probably gets pretty old when you hit mid 30s.

  5. #80
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevo View Post
    It may be pertinent to explain to OP that at the time you had a pretty good setup, like owning a house
    I don't think the OP's alias is really interested in pertinent given the info he's provided about his own situation.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  6. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by shredgnar View Post
    Maybe just the difference between big city and small city.
    True to an extent, but there's still a BIG difference between a "normal" small town and a resort town. I came from a legit, small town in rural Montana before moving to Big Sky. The differences are great and many.

  7. #82
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    I could've sworn I saw a really good post from AdironRider in here today but now can't find it. Mirrored a LOT of what I've observed. Did it get deleted or is it just my imagination?

  8. #83
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    Quote Originally Posted by detrusor View Post
    On my 25th birthday I woke up, realized I was one missed paycheck from being evicted or not being able to feed my 3 year old as a single dad. Rode my bike to the local college, some of my racing buddies were in admissions and said just sign up, we’ll juggle the paperwork until student loans can come through. School started in 2 days. Fast forward...4 years of college in 2 years by crushing myself. Then Med school, residency and now I can live wherever the fuck I want. I think it was worth the pain and expense but you need to take a hard look before signing up.


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums
    Impressive. So difficult.

  9. #84
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    Dec 2004
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    Quote Originally Posted by skaredshtles View Post
    Shit - took all of 8 seconds to figure out who it was.
    Well I am not outing the OP but he contacted me and I am owed a beer.

    Nevertheless.

    The Mountain West is exploding with development right now, maybe not everywhere to the extent of Bozeman or Park City etc but there is all kinds of opportunity.

    Find a niche that doesn't cost a lot of money for start up and start filling a need.

    Buddy of mine started a safety consulting business, ex-patroller and Firefighter looking ahead to when he retires in another 10 years. He is already paying off the start up.

    If a business or an acquaintance does you wrong, you can openly call them out on it. In a small town, every pretends to be all nicey nice, but there is NO loyalty except to the machine. In that town, seems that near everyone's "bent the knee" to the powers that be, and if you aren't an all out ass kisser, take objection to getting effed over, and don't want to stay quiet about what's going on around you, then you're out. It's a bizarre dynamic. The fear that people have of pissing off the wrong people is palpable.
    I dunno Austin, I have lived in and around Big Sky/Bozeman for coming up on 30 years. I never worried about who I piss off or call out and believe me, I set fire to a lot of bridges. When I was fired from Big Sky in 2001/02 I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper describing what happened. I had a LOT of people who I had never met approach me if only to tell me their story of getting Boyned and how I was just a member of a not very elite club. Every one of them said the same thing, "don't worry, it will work out". The next year I was helping to build a new ski area right next door and really pissing in Big Sky's cheerios. A large part of the reason I was hired into that situation was because of past history, so ya never know.

  10. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ted Striker View Post
    ^^^ that's good advice, but the guys I met while doing that were addicts and ex-cons. They thought I was the one who had their shit together.
    I used to work with this guy Rocky, good carpenter. He would only work if he could be paid in cash, hadn't filed taxes in like 25 years, and lived in his van. He was convinced he was winning.

    #coolstorybro?

  11. #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    I used to work with this guy Rocky, good carpenter. He would only work if he could be paid in cash, hadn't filed taxes in like 25 years, and lived in his van. He was convinced he was winning.

    #coolstorybro?
    I have a buddy like that. A few big years back in the 90s when he didn’t want to pay and now he is constantly hiding from the tax man over what was probably $30 grand.

  12. #87
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    Nov 2003
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    With very few exceptions every year of my life has been spent living in cities of 1M or more people. Living in Vail for 3 years in the early 90's was weird - everyone knew my shit. I'd get people whose face I barely recognized ask me if I enjoyed the steak they watched me buy the other day at Safeway. That was fucking creepy.

  13. #88
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    ^^^ Yeah that is a little off, no question.

    That's something I've found living in a small town as well: lack of boundaries.

  14. #89
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    Quote Originally Posted by ULLRismyco-pilot View Post
    I have a buddy like that. A few big years back in the 90s when he didn’t want to pay and now he is constantly hiding from the tax man over what was probably $30 grand.
    Rocky used to cackle over the stature of limitations..."even if they catch me I still win!" was a tag line of his.

    Meanwhile, pretty much everyone who worked with him figured he had a big pile of cash stashed in a hole somewhere and was plotting how to steal it.

    Not me of course.

    Well yeah me too.

  15. #90
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    When did you "throw in the towel"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ikon_Police View Post
    Sorry for being intentionally vague. Longtime poster using a stupid alias. Just curious as to what everyone's personal "cut off" point was for bailing on the dream and moving back to reality or when/how they actually made something happen so they could live in a cool place AND not be a bum while doing it.
    So whiteroom guardian living in Bozeman area, struggling with California’s wealthiest moving to town?
    Sorry I thought we were trying to guess. You do realize that your username is an alias. Like a mikeyb dating story or something.

    Suck it up or leave honestly. Life’s too short to be miserable. Youre presumably young, have no responsibility etc. working for or with the man has its perks also. I’m assuming half the people in that anonymous area made money in Silicon Valley working for the man. Now they are cashing in.
    Work seasonally somewhere else come back to ski. But mixing career with living the dream details a lot of people. Seems like you can be a professional in Seattle, salt lake, Denver etc and still get after it.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  16. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by detrusor View Post
    On my 25th birthday I woke up, realized I was one missed paycheck from being evicted or not being able to feed my 3 year old as a single dad. Rode my bike to the local college, some of my racing buddies were in admissions and said just sign up, we’ll juggle the paperwork until student loans can come through. School started in 2 days. Fast forward...4 years of college in 2 years by crushing myself. Then Med school, residency and now I can live wherever the fuck I want. I think it was worth the pain and expense but you need to take a hard look before signing up.

    Quote Originally Posted by 4matic View Post
    Impressive. So difficult.
    No doubt. I respect that. I'm way too slack for that, dog help me.

  17. #92
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    I used to work with this guy Rocky, good carpenter. He would only work if he could be paid in cash, hadn't filed taxes in like 25 years, and lived in his van. He was convinced he was winning.

    #coolstorybro?

    Sounds like he was and is #Winning.




    #FuckTheMan.

  18. #93
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    Quote Originally Posted by m2711c View Post
    Sounds like he was and is #Winning.
    #FuckTheMan.
    Well except for the part about where everyone who worked with him was thinking about kidnapping, torturing and killing him to get his money, I agree.

  19. #94
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    I used to work with this guy Rocky, good carpenter. He would only work if he could be paid in cash, hadn't filed taxes in like 25 years, and lived in his van. He was convinced he was winning.

    #coolstorybro?
    Good way to beat the system.... and disqualify yourself from Social Security benefit eligibility.
    Quote Originally Posted by powder11 View Post
    if you have to resort to taking advice from the nitwits on this forum, then you're doomed.

  20. #95
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    Well except for the part about where everyone who worked with him was thinking about kidnapping, torturing and killing him to get his money, I agree.
    His name wasn't heyzues, by any chance? Rough gig that carpentry, things can get cross at times.

  21. #96
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    Quote Originally Posted by skiballs View Post
    His name wasn't heyzues, by any chance?
    Nah he was as white as your neighbors.

  22. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by El Chupacabra View Post
    Good way to beat the system.... and disqualify yourself from Social Security benefit eligibility.
    I'm not sure he wanted those. He wasn't a spring chicken when I knew him and he seemed pretty down with working until he died. As long as it paid cash money.

    He's the one who convinced me to put my prized Estwing framer away, man I loved that thing but I listened to him.

  23. #98
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    I do have and use one of these though:



    Great for splitting kindling.

    (Estwing Campers Hatchet)

  24. #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    Nah he was as white as your neighbors.
    So euro Jesus.

  25. #100
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    Not sure what that means but I bet I deserve it

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