During the last three years I have continued to write even outside of this blog, putting together short stories of both fiction and non-fiction events because I really only “work” four to five hours a day.
It has been a great way for me to spend my time and it finally paid off this past summer. In December last year, my friend David Blue visited me and we had a splendid time together. We talked almost every week since then and much of our conversations had to do with the estate sales business his family was running in North Carolina.
I had scrapped the idea of running basketball camps and had planned on working out and doing odd jobs in the summer to keep myself busy. Then one Facetime call happened on a Friday when David was in Salt Lake City and was a little overwhelmed by how much work needed to be done and how little manpower he had to do it. Being a free agent in the summer and eager to not live out in the boonies with my parents, I asked if I could come and work for him. He liked my writing and thought it could be fun to have a 6-foot-7 redhead around. He ran it by the CEO (his mother) and got the OK for me to come out and join Blue Moon Estate Sales.
I returned back to the U.S. on April 20 and spent four days with my parents just relaxing and enjoying the time shooting guns, eating mom’s food and playing with my dog Oscar. I was able to see a couple of my friends in Minnesota before setting off on April 24 to make my way cross-country to Raleigh. I made a few pit stops along the way for a little silliness and shenanigans in St. Louis with my friend William and then Tennessee with a Wisconsin football legend Captain Curt Philips. I arrived Raleigh on Friday afternoon of April 29. I moved my two suitcases into my closet and got comfy on the couch that I would be crashing on for the summer.
I was thrown right into the fire the next day on my way to working my very first estate sale at 6 a.m. I received training all day from David on the ins and outs of how the estate sales industry works at a very small and rather boring sale. It was good for me because on my second day of work was one of the busiest sales of the summer that had almost a thousand people walk through. It was crazy, hectic and a long day of work that I had never really experienced outside the basketball court.
There were no days off as I was learning the business from the ground up working on sales during the weekend and doing franchise/corporate work Monday-Friday. I learned on the fly, as there was plenty of freedom for me to be creative as well as step in and do things that needed to get done. There was no shortage of work; I was putting in nearly 80 hours a week and had only one day off in six weeks. I was a little worn down but honestly it was so much fun as I had never done anything like it before and was a huge change of pace from being a basketball player. During this time I did not pick up a basketball for almost two months and it felt amazing. I have not taken a break like that since I was 16 years old and it was definitely needed to help recharge my basketball batteries.
It was not all work and no play as I had an absolute blast in North Carolina. I played in the TBT tournament for the second year in a row and advanced to the second weekend. I got to frolic around New York for four days rubbing elbows with some of the most influential people in the franchise industry. Also small side note, I won a rap battle with a bum on the street in front of said influential people. I enjoyed a music festival and even got to watch a top-50 air hockey player in the world win a weekly tournament at a local bar.
I will once again be working in North Carolina this summer so if anyone is around let me know and would love to have dinner with any fellow Badgers. Also a shameless plug: Blue Moon Estates Sales is the first of its kind being a franchised estate sale company and will be making its way to Wisconsin and Illinois very soon.
On my next Imported Bru, how I ended up back in Scandinavia.
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