Not much. And a lot of things. In September and October, concurrent with tearing down and moving out of the shop, I built a very janky swimming pool pond in my garage for the refugee koi and goldfish I failed to sell. You can see that on my Instagram! Satisfied with the build, I drove out to California the day after closing the shop to see my parents. Between manning the shop every day and covid, I hadn’t seen my family in over two years. Wife and dog came along. Dog met the ocean for the first time. Saw my grandma. It was nice.
I spent the winter sometimes decompressing, sometimes depressing. Losing the shop was not easy. I spent 3.5 years of my life on a passion project and it crashed and burned. I was and am sad about it, and feel pretty justified in that sadness. I considered numerous other career shifts. Get an electrician or plumber or both certification. Go to vet school. Go back to paleontology consulting. Go back for my paleontology Ph.D. Be a bookkeeper or secretary for some high-paying money-moving company. Become, at 34, a CIA Agent. Thanks, Dad, for the helpful suggestion. My aunt’s wife’s grandpa was a CIA Agent, or something, so they could get me in. Such was the claim, at least. I intended to go snowboarding a lot, but the winter was pretty global-warming-y. I found out I have ADHD, another Very Cool thing to do at 34. Suffice to say, it’s been busy having no business.
In the end, I’ve decided to stick with Mile High Koi, but with a twist. First of all, it’s going to happen in my little backyard at home, so I won’t be a walk-in business anymore (or the city will get mad at me). Rent was a gruesome spectre at Broadway Square and I barely broke even while paying it. I pretty much just ran the store for two years so I could make my landlord money. Secondly, I’m going to shift towards aquaponics. Aquaponic Farming seems like a fantastic environment for raising koi and goldfish. It fits a lot of productivity into a small space, which my yard happens to be, and either makes me or other local businesses food. This will take quite a while to build though so, as I predicted last July, I doubt I’ll have much to sell for spring/summer 2022. I’m thinking goldfish on-site + koi mix-pack delivery. Hit me up, dogs.
TL;DR The Project is on-going, The Dream is still alive, but it’s been rough going so far. As I understand it, such is the case with most Dreams.