(I know it's horrible grammar. ;-)

I've had the title above as part of my arsenal of quips for years. During another business opportunity, a millionaire once told me that whenever he went into a new enterprise he always wanted to find a guy to work with him that had done it before (whatever "before" was) and if he couldn't find a guy who had done it before, he wanted to find the guy who had stood beside the guy who had done it before while the guy was doing it! That little nugget of wisdom devolved into my saying, "Ain't no substitute for doin' it."

Certainly, before starting this little enterprise, I gathered as much information as I could. Certainly, I marshalled resources who I knew knew more than I about the various aspects of the enterprise but, ya know...there ain't no substitute for doing it!

At this point I have done thirteen installations (with two more on the way) and somewhere around the tenth installation, things started settling in. I purchased a continuity tested for ethernet cables that really boosted my confidence in my wiring because I could see immediately if I had a problem and could fix it. (Obsessive individuals love this kind of feedback!) I learned the tricks of hiding wires in vinyl siding and gained some experience drilling through walls.

Not that it doesn't take still take work and not that I'm not slower than the average installer (I like to take my time and do the job to my own satisfaction) but....[drumroll please]...

WE ARE OVER HALF WAY! ;-)

The goal was to find twenty five neighbors to share the Internet because with twenty-five I could pay back my investment in three years (provided the tower doesn't get ripped out of the ground by a tornado). At this point, that goal seems very, very doable.

I did wake up to the realization a few days ago that I was approaching the last ten installations and I hadn't visited with my neighbors to the east of the tower. This was an oversight. I had had enough responses from the west that I had been busy servicing those so (as you can see from the map) almost all the installations were west. That didn't seem right so Saturday I went east and beat on doors and handed out cards. I had the opportunity to meet a lot of wonderful people. I even met a couple whose son was friends with my daughter in highschool and we had a chance to visit.

So now we're on the countdown to closing the first phase of this little project. I've had several neighbors ask me if I'm going to go beyond twenty five installations. I always respond that the equipment has the capacity. I can theoretically service 200 subscriber units from the tower. Unfortunately, Motorola is very proud of this equipment (and it is good equipment). In order to get the price on the subscriber units down in the reasonable range, I had to buy them in packs of twenty five, which means that I would need to have a significant portion of the units in the second set presold to make it make sense financially.

In any case, I would like to pause after the first twenty five and get a few other little projects done that have been on hold while I've been working on this one.

After that? Who knows. If there is enough interest, maybe we'll try another twenty five. (But I'm not promising anything! ;-)

More to come...