Joe emailed me the other day, saying he found the perfect pump for the refinery at NAPA, but it cost nearly $400. After a bit of haggling, he managed to get them down to under $300, but it was still more than we have in the budget. He was back in the shop, telling a friend about the problem, and that friend mentioned that he had a pump very similar to that, which he wasn’t using. So now we have a pump, and we paid him a fraction of what we would have paid otherwise.
Everything always seems to work out. In fact, the very way I met Joe is another example. After I bought the bus, I realized we would need some sponsors to get some extra money to finish the conversion, so I contacted the Hartford Courant to see if they could help me get some exposure. And they did, and an article ran about the bus shortly after. Someone over at FOX 61 noticed the article, and thought it would make a good story, so they contacted me. And soon enough, there was a story about the bus on TV. Shortly after that, I got an email from Joe, offering to help me convert the bus. Serendipity.
Much of my life has been like that. It helps that I’m white, upper middle class and male, but I’m not sure that privilege is always to blame. Much of it seems to be random occurrences, and how we respond to them. I’ve been reading a lot of blogs of people discovering the same thing. Joe introduced me to the packaged and marketed version of this, called The Secret. Apparently Oprah is big on it. Anywise, there seems to be something to the idea, though I’m not sold on the movie/book – that seems stupid.