Pimp my Scooter

It's quite an odd thing to lose one's job. For a while, it's exciting, liberating and most of all it seems as if there are so many doors yet to be opened. Unemployment Insurance seems to be the safety net you clumsily stand on until you can find a new ladder to climb. Sure, the net isn't as stable as you once were and sometimes your foot falls through here and there but all in all you live instead of perish because of this net and you just hope it will keep you safe until you can find something new.

This feeling of tentative happiness fades rather quickly, however, when the state of the economy that you now find yourself in is nothing short of catastrophic. Yes, I eat meals every day and yes I still pay my bills. Yet when the third month in a row shows its face having yielded not one single phone call or interview, it becomes harder nay near impossible to see the light. To stymie off this feeling of inadequacy one looks to feel fulfilled, skilled and even resourceful. My personal panic room usually consists of little projects that are just a tad beyond my current skill set and propose a sufficient challenge for me to both learn and be proud of my work.

For months, nearly a year to be honest, UGOBE spun its wheels quite literally producing nothing. In retrospect, it explains why near the end I was so unhappy. I felt like I was contributing nothing because I wasn't. I couldn't. No matter the project, direction or goal we were set off to accomplish, inevitably mid-way through the project our focus was shifted to something new and shiny. We were a company of goldfish, really. In the end, my job became null and void- I had no team to manage, no project to see completed, and most of all, no confidence that my efforts would ever amount to anything tangible anyway. Thus- I needed to once again feel as though my hours of work would net a return. I began to eye my scooter curiously asking myself- what can be done to improve you, sir?

I landed on the only possible solution- I had to pimp my scooter. It actually turned out quite nicely- you know, for a total cheesy underglow effect type of "nicely." The actual process of making said cheese happen was not trivial by any means. It required me to gain a new understanding of electrical diagrams, power consumption and wiring. After some drilling, zip ties, running electrical cable, laying in the dirt, swearing, trial and error and a whole lot of reading- I arrived at a destination I so adamantly sought... satisfaction.

Something I did, some effort I placed into the universe came back to me in physical return. For once, in a very long time, the conservation of energy remained true in my life. Ahhh- it feels good. Physics in motion.