rain, holey bumpers, and the prison barber

Of course we can't just get some light sprinkles or maybe a nice little spring flurry here.  No, we have to get 3 days of intermittent torrential downpours - at one point yesterday I could barely make out the house across the street it was coming down so hard out there.  So despite the fact Clementine is all fixed up and ready to come home, all this rain has turned the back yard into a giant mud pit.  Had we been able to bring her in the yard last week we would have been able to figure out where to put the boards she's going to sit on to prevent her from sinking into the garden but alas, until the ground is a wee bit drier, she will have to stay at the mechanic's as I am pretty sure right now we would accomplish little more than getting her stuck.  And I don't want to pay for another tow because she's buried up to the bumper in mud.

Speaking of the bumpers, it looks like we have the wrong one.  Ours is solid, like this:

But we need one with a hole in it for the exhaust, similar to this:

That leaves us with 3 options.  1, try and track down the correct holey bumper.  2, find someone to cut the hole for us.  Or 3, since when she was getting towed I noticed a hole right at the end of the tailpipe that would indicate we need to replace some of it anyways, we can just pimp her out like this:

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I think one of the most challenging aspects of taking the bus on the road will be generating a day-to-day income, without buying a business license for every city we hit.  I'm hoping that most places have something similar to a Farmer's Market permit that we can grab, or that we can find some way to be of no fixed address and still able to provide services.  Obviously while we are still in the Edmonton area we will just continue to have a regular business license like the one I have now, but the whole "mobile business" thing is actually quite popular these days so hopefully there will be precedent set by the time we hit the open road.

We all know about food trucks - apparently here in Edmonton we have currently have 22 licensed food trucks.  (You can find out more at www.whatthetruck.ca)

Snap-On Tools has been franchising mobile businesses for years:

 But there are in fact a whole schwack of mobile businesses thriving around the globe.  Here is a look at a few of the ones that piqued my interest.

Ian Ruhter turned his entire truck into a camera:

From French tips to fake tans, haircuts to couture, make-up to make-overs there are all kinds of fashion and salon service trucks for him and her out there:

(My favourite is the prison-van-turned-mobile-barber shop (lower right corner below) which you can read about here.)

Also found were cigars, flowers, vinyl records, kitchen kitsch, yarn junkies, knife sharpening...

And even a dedicated (dog) food truck.

We live in an economy designed to cater to mega-corporations with billions to burn.  The idea of big being better still rules supreme but small business owners who would otherwise find themselves unable to afford skyrocketing rents on the mega-sized box store locations are fighting back by taking it to the streets (literally) and recreating a viable cottage industry one truck at a time.  Huzzah!

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Bill and I are still debating what kind of mobile business(es) we can set up.  I (obviously) will keep photographing everything I can and I recently signed up for some freelance writing gigs - we shall see if anything pans out on that front - and I can maybe do a bit of sewing to sell, but I think the real money will come from Bill, who should learn to do 3 basic men's haircuts.  I genuinely think he could make some pretty decent coin specializing in these...

The standard short:

The standard medium-length:

And of course the ever-popular hipster haircut of choice, the pompadour.  (I'll post a video of Bill getting this haircut later...)

The hot shave would be a nice addition to Bill's cuts, but that means we have the wrong kind of salon chair, dammit.  (I'll post a video of Bill getting a hot shave later, too.)

I had actually debated the reclining barber chair but backed out at the last minute in favour of matching retro burgundy ones.  Who knew it would be the wrong choice?  Maybe I will have to make use of the burgundy chair doing fabulous girly hairstyles while on the go, which with a little more experience I think I could really rock.  Specifically, I am a master-braider and can do some pretty wicked vintage styles.  Here are looks I know I can do:

All these braids are a snap for me...

And I can twist, curl, and pin like the dickens...

Here are looks I would never even try because a) I lack the patience and b) they sell wigs for that shit.

Until next week...