NAW

Talk to a pattent lawyer, work out a deal with them, small fee up front fee, % of sales for a period of time. Have the originator cover your out of pocket expenses and again agree on a % of sales.

 

You are going to have some duds but they won't have cost you anything but some time and just one or two success a year could make you, the lawyer, and the originator very rich.

 

Brian has some good ideas for products, I have one of his adaptors for my ice auger and wouldn't leave home without it!

I am in Linsday a few times a year. I should swing by for a coffee and a chat once I get things set up.

You know way more about this stuff than I do!

Great post Rob!

I love this time of year!

I really appreciate all your comments everyone!!

I've got some decent leads on part time jobs now, and I've got a few weeks still to get it all figured out.

Cliff, your right about taking the design side of things a little further. But at the moment, I don't want to take to much risk. I used to work with patents a few years ago, and the lawyer bills where consistent!

It will be fun to see if I get any income from it. I will be starting a website/fb page soon, and starting to push the service. So if anyone has a crazy ideas for fishing / outdoors gear. Let me know! I need to start somewhere....

Thanks again for the feedback!

So I have big news about my career. It's been in the process for a while now, but I just signed my contract, so I can let the cat out of the bag!!

I have been chained to a desk for the last 12 years as a mechanical designer for a company in Barrie that make industrial automation for the metal stamping industry. I used to love my job, with a passion. But over the past 3 or 4 years, I have started to hate it more and more every day.

I've tried going to another automation company in town. But it's all the same stuff.. Same stresses. Same sitting on my butt all day.

Sitting down has really caused me some significant medical issues. At the age of 32, my prostate is blown... I can't sit on my butt any more. Certainly not for 50 hours a week anyways.

So yesterday I signed a contract to become partial load professor at Georgian College.

There are some good and bad to this. The goods are fairly obvious if you know anything about Georgian as an employer. They are an amazing company to work for (top 100 in Canada 7 years in a row). Benefits are great, and potential for growth are very good!

BUT... As partial load, I will never be able to work more then 12 hours a week (dang union..) So even if I max out my hours (which I have not this semester), I have effectively cut my income in half. That's the only downside.

That being said, I only work 1 day a week. I teach 3 courses, and they booked them all on a Friday. So I have 6 other days in the week to make some money.

There are some opportunities in the future to pick up more hours with the college doing research and development work. But that won't be fore at least 3 or 4 months.

So my question to my fellow OFC family.

Does anyone have any good ideas of a decent part time / on-call job that I can do for this winter?

I have applied to several snow shoveling jobs, On-call Fed-ex courier, and some other random part time jobs I've found on In-deed. But nothing that really looks to be the "one".

The second part of my career change, is that I am going to register a small business called "NAW Outdoors and Design". I have always wanted to do this. The company will be two fold.

1. There will be an "outdoor adventure" side of it, which will be limited to guided snowshoe trips, XC skiing, and outdoor adventures in the winter. In the summer it will be guided hikes, mountain bike trips and maybe fishing, and I am thinking Kayak / Canoe day trips.. Not 100% sure yet.

2. There will be a mechanical design portion to the company. The design side will be a contract / consulting service tailored to people who have an idea for an outdoors product, but don't know how to design / prototype it. I have all the contacts and skill sets to build pretty much any prototype you can imagine. I have access to several rapid prototyping machines and local machine shops capable of some pretty amazing things. The design side will also allow me to contract myself out doing mechanical design work for the automation industry, if I can't find work somewhere else. I am really trying to take a break from mechanical design desk work at the moment because that's what my body needs.

So I still have lots of things to work out. And lots on uncertainty in the future. The business I am starting is more of hobby at this point. I honestly don't expect much income from it. I've got 2 other guiding company's that are offering me work locally around Barrie. But it will be only a few small jobs per year, and pay peanuts. But the outdoors is my passion, so I will enjoy it and that's what matters.

The outdoor gear design really gets some of my friends excited, because every outdoorsman has an idea for some cool product! But I'm not optimistic that any profits will come my way from this work. It's just something I have wanted to do for a long time, so why not!!

Anyways. Sorry for rambling on. I just wanted to share this major life event with everyone. And also to see if anyone has any ideas of a decent part time job for me this winter!!

I would love to guide perch fishing tours on Simcoe for one of the operators!! That would be an amazing winter part time job..... Likely a pipe dream though.

Time to start up the gas auger and start drilling a new hole 3" from the one he's fishing!

Ya.. With your exhaust pointed right in his face....

One day ice fishing me and my buddy are sitting about 10 feet apart. We had augered a bunch of holes around us so we didn't have to restart teh auger later. We started catching crappies and then all of a sudden a guy just sits down between the two of us and starts fishing in one of our holes!!!

Wow. If that happened on any of my crappie spots. Boy. That would have turned in to a violent encounter. Honestly. It would have had a very very bad outcome.

To go while sleeping is about as good as you can ask for right.

That's a fine looking dog. I bet you guys had lots of good times!

That's wild!!!

I didn't realize you could break a Bravo.. Weird.

Use this one!!

Load er up with slugs or 00 and away you go!!

I've seen some boats out, but not in the usual spots. I have to be honest, I have't been down there much for a look this year. And I normally just head out to where all the other boats are, and start my hunt from there.

Just wondering if anyone has been out this fall, and if they are getting any decent hauls..?

It's a bit of a pain now that we have to pay for parking, and even though Midhurst might as well be Barrie, I still have to pay!

This nice fall weather... He was just sun tanning man!!

That's a big girl!! Congrats Chad!!

Get them tender loins out, and cook em tonight!!! By far my favorite part of the harvest!!

Next week? I'd be out there right now!!!!

Thats pretty spot on.

This is a sad..But a great read Mike.

My condolences.

It looks like your doing your grandpa proud.

I am going to my grandmothers funeral this Sunday...

I almost ran my neighbor over yesterday

What's her name?

Go Get em!!

I can't wait to get back in to deer hunting!

Once my boy is old enough to sit still in a ground blind. I give it 2 more seasons on the bench for me..

Sounds like a roller coaster of a weekend!

That's a big bird in the middle eh!

I didn't know their size varied so much.

What colour where the flames at 4:30?!.

Scary stuff.

Your braver than I heading out in those conditions on the Bay.

Lesson learned for everyone I guess.

Stay safe man. I like your posts. I want to be reading them for years to come!!

Seen that a while back.

Buddy gets messed up pretty bad.

He's got to have a bad cuncusion. Or worse, no??

Bible thumpers... No? Having church being disrupted by gun fire??

That's what I always figure.

Forgive me if I'm being an idiot...

Good news for sure.

It's only a mater of time before they hurt someone.

My girlfriends daughter came running down on Saturday to tell me it snowed the night before.

SO my son jumps out of bed yelling "MoMobile, Momobile!!!"

Doesn't even put his coat in.. Just his rubber boots. Finds the hidden key to the garage, and beats me outside.. This is where I found him... Begging for a ride.

But there was no snow. Just a few patches on the deck.. It took some explaining to him why we couldn't go for a ride.

Love this kid!