The problem with PPL and the government. Enterprising heart meets bricks.

Well all, I am enjoying a beer and a kick back night with my girls. Need to vent though.
And what a better audience then fellow Ferrari car enthusiasts that all have passion in common.

My father (who was never very successful, in turn drove me to be even more successful) always said "you can not argue with a brick" : someone so stubborn that all logic will fail in the end.

This story starts out in Yuma, Arizona of all places, 2009.

I met an air traffic controller in the Marine core from a mutual friend (who ran off with a stripper, so that mutual friend is gone LOL).

He will go on nameless, as he has done myself and a few other friends wrong. He is from Taiwan, great personable individual and so friendly to everyone.

I was in UAV flight school for the US NAVY and we had a lot in common being military and aviation, became good friends. (I was actually Army but in a Naval School)
We wanted to get away from service life, and start a business. I was very tied up with my contract and could not maneuver in the public sector so I told him everything I knew about starting a business and being an entrepreneur.

I helped him get away from the mliitary (it was just not doing him any favors anyway) and hooked him up with all the right people to get in the cigar business.

He moved to Miami, had connections now in Dominica and started his way to a great cigar label.

He quickly forgot who assisted him to get there but then came back to Earth.

We reconnected last year and my time with DoD was done. He said lets start a business.
Now normally I do not get my close friends to wrap up in a situation that could harm our friendship. Because I know I don't make errors like that. I really don't. But other people, you have to trust them. There's always one in two that knows what right.

Well he ended up screwing what came to be out 3rd business partner, and destroyed a 6 year friendship.

I was never out any real money, but he leaned on me to get a huge sum of money for this start up, that I told him would require 3-4 months to produce.

On month 2, he was on me like a drunk prom date. I could not understand the fire, everything was planned out to the T thanks to me in getting the plan going, be he kept pressing me.

Then it came to me, he had started spending money on the business, before anyone was ready for the brick and mortar. He was trying to expedite the business start date, but in his anxious tenacious appetite, defaulted the entire plan.

He burned 2 bridges at once.
I could not comprehend his logic. He comes from a wealthy family (he burned that too) and also took some funds for his other business. It was not like him. It was one of those inexplicable events that you worry would happen. He WAS murphys law.

He quickly refunded all the money. It was too late for us though. The trust was gone. The plan undone.

Far worse is the fact I am 36, not getting younger and all I wanted to do was have one business under my belt to expand to the next.

It was a brilliant plan, and just eats at me everyday that I might have to go back to working for the Army.
I am in a now defacto career mode with the Army, being on orders here and there, but not active duty anymore. I grow weary of adding another deployment (I have done 3) and feel I need to move on to private enterprise here in FL. It just does not seem to be in the cards this year.

I worked hard to have what I have, and now I feel like I am at square one to get to a point where I can start my own business. I could liquidate everything I own, but that is against the advice from a family member who has done much better than I "use your wealth as a chip in any business and you no longer have any wealth so speak of, if anything should go wrong you have nothing to show for the triumph of prior labors". Love my tio.

"To better times James"

 

White Russian anyone?