Welcome back, I say to myself. My usual Friday post was delayed because I was a panelist at the Whidbey Island Comicon. Finally, Monday. Whew. I didn’t make much money. Such events rarely do, at least for me. So, why spend time and money on an event that looks unprofitable from a personal finance perspective? Why not?

Let me check on my Events page to see how many events have been listed.

Skip that. I don’t want to have to count that high. Classes, talks, presentations, etc., with the first listed on being the book launch for Dream. Invest. Live., the book that inspired this blog. December 11, 2008, just as the Great Recession (the Second Great Depression) began. Bad timing. 

Every event can have specific goals and incentives, but all of them fit into the category of public awareness. Sometimes that’s for profit. Sometimes for fundraising. Sometimes for fun. Sometimes I give a talk because someone needs someone to give a talk. Fine. No fee? That’s probably ok.

My passion is for people and ideas. There is enough dispensed wisdom and shared memes about following your passion, but it wasn’t until about fifteen years ago that I realized my passion was for people and ideas. Sure, I have a degree in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. I have a black belt in an old style of karate. I write and sell what I write. I take and sell photos. I teach. I consult. I do a lot of things that can be seen as passions, but I finally realized that my passion is connecting people to people and people to ideas. Connecting ideas to ideas alludes me. 

The world doesn’t have problems. It’s spinning around regardless of us. We may have a direct impact now, but the human race is a transitory blip in the evolution of the universe. Our society and civilization, however, needs us to solve a variety of problems, mostly by we pesky humans sorting through ideas while we hunt for solutions. 

Being a conduit between people, people, and ideas can be fun, or gratifying, or both.
I was a guest again at the renamed Whidbey Island Comicon. ‘Guest’ means I didn’t have to pay. But there were costs.

Any event takes time. Time is precious and irreplaceable. We spend time. As I age, I become more aware of the preciousness of time. Unless we manage immortality, every day is one day lost to time. I am human, so I only have a finite number of days to spend.

Any event also takes more time than they have on the schedule. Commuting happens, which in my case included four round trips on the ferry, though I didn’t disembark for a couple of them. (Let’s see if I remember to add that bit of notes.) Eating happens. Getting ready to go takes time. Unpacking takes time. Catching up on delayed chores takes time. Gotta remember those personal hygiene moments like showers.

As an author and a presenter, I spent time preparing my books, their price sheets, business cards, display stands, notepads, pens, and whatever else has fallen into my boxes labeled Travel Kit. Gotta remember those professional presentation items like doing laundry so I can look business casual.

Three days on various panels stretch out over a variety of days before and after as I do public things like advertise the event on social media, and those private things like document income, expenses, and inventory. 

Then there are those bits of merch that various authors share around. Sorry folks, mine exists as purchaseable merch. (Zazzle)

Hey. I mentioned income and expenses. Events take money, too.

Of course, I was happy to sell books. I was also surprised when someone wanted to buy one. I get swept up in the events and can lose focus. So it goes. (And thanks for the purchase.)

The rest of the money is expenses: food for me, fuel for the Jeep, ferry fees, office resupply (usually as I try to find what I am sure I have – somewhere), and maybe a trinket or two from the fellow presenters. I’m frugal, so there isn’t much of that.

On balance, I spent much more money than I made, and the time is irreplaceable. So it goes.

And, I’d do it again. Look back at the Event list. I’ve done it again, and again, and …

Miscellaneous

One year, an attendee proved to me that my screenplay about the true life story of a 14-year-old ancestor on a tall ship in 1876 is much easier (though still difficult) than I thought.

At other events, I’ve heard back from people whom I’ve helped without knowing that I’d done anything.

Evidently, simply listening without judgment is rare enough that they were encouraged to proceed and succeed. You’re welcome. 

I’m not going to list the friends I’ve made or the ideas I’ve heard and shared. Both lists are so long that I keep going back to events, even if there are only a few in attendance. Every person has a story. Crowds are not required.

My reasons are not universal. Some want to feed their ego, make money, increase their cachet, build community, and find opportunities. Cool. How else are you going to spend your life, listening to people who are active in the world, or watching yet another sixty-second video?

But then, some say I am an optimist. Someone stole a book at this event, again. I celebrated it, again. It has happened before. Of all the books that were there, someone stole one of mine. That’s a compliment. It isn’t profitable in terms of cash, but someone who maybe couldn’t afford it otherwise (and who didn’t want to wait for their library to buy a copy), walked away with words I wrote. Not knowing their story gives me an excuse to wonder about their life. That’s precious.

Time is easy to measure, at least in human terms. Money is counted incessantly, so there’s no revelation there. People and ideas? They’re precious and worth the time and the money.

PS

Oh yeah, the ferry ride.

My Jeep doesn’t use keys. I get that it is common. It requires me to use a key fob, a piece of electronics that must work or the car won’t. On the drive back from the event, I eventually drove onto the ferry as usual. The ferry began its 35-minute trip from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend. I can’t recall why, but I wanted to do something like ‘roll-down’ a window (which no longer requires rolling anything.) The car displayed a message: Key Fob Not Detected. Not detected? Ok, but I can detect it right here – you silly machine. 

I’ll spare you the details, but I tried it various times, made sure the rest of the electronics were working, but I couldn’t roll down the window or start the car. Ferries are tricky things. They run on tight schedules, and the drivers are eager to get going. But my car was naturally blocking every car in my lane. Anxiety. Ugh.

I popped the hood to see if something popped off. Nope. I changed the battery. Nope. I put the old battery back in. Nope. I flipped the battery over. Nope. I checked for cracks. Nope.

Finally, I found a ferry worker and pointed out my car, the one with the hood up. They’re practiced at this. Cars break down. Batteries run down. People lose keys. People walk off the boat, forgetting that they drove on. They had a battery pack and tried jump-starting it. And again, several times.

Each time they tried to start it, I pointed out that the display says, Key Fob Not Detected. I’ll simply say that it was several times before they realized that, as I’d already checked, everything else was fine, but that the car couldn’t detect the key fob. Oh. They weren’t practiced at that. 

This also meant that I couldn’t put the car into Neutral for them to tow it off the boat, as they normally do. They managed to get everyone else off the boat, and then load the cars for the next run, going back to where I started – with my car pointed the wrong way.

And, ah ha. I ignored most of what we’d tried, tweaked one thing, and the car started. Yay! They docked back on Whidbey, off-loaded everyone as normal, and told me to drive to the front, just in case they needed to tow it onto the dock when we reached Port Townsend.
I’m home, safe, and somewhat relieved.

Something in that fob broke. My spare at home works fine. I’ll replace the original. I’m an engineer, not a sparky (an electrical engineer), but there was no obvious damage. It is possible that some slice of silicon slipped up. 

Jeeps were known for being rugged and reliable. Each one has failed me because of a too-fragile sensor of various kinds. Their reputation was valid, but no longer for me.

But back to the point as to why this anecdote is part of this post, the cost of that bit of bad design was emotionally more significant than any cost incurred for the event. Go to the events. Meet with people.

Share ideas. And maybe buy a car that uses real keys.