co-directing

Recently, Paul Atwell and I were nominated and elected as the future co-directors for the EDGE project. Our developing relationship has been one to remember. For contextual purposes, Paul has been helping me fix my bike and I have been looking around for some new parts. A series of emails sent today:

From Sam (3:35 PM):
just put a bid on these on ebay. Will let you know the conclusion!
[link to piece]

From Paul (3:42 PM):
I'm going to out bid you just for the hell of it. Get ready for a battle.

Sam (3:43 PM):
my max bid is at 1000 dollars... beat that

Paul (3:47 PM):
How about this. I'm going to buy the company that's selling. Then you can pay me the 1000 after you win the auction. Then we'll call it even.

Sam (3:51 PM):
i suppose that works. could you include a free bike that's worth 700 dollars? then this whole thing will be worth it. This way, I can sell that bike on ebay for 800 dollars.. and repeat the process until I make 10,000 dollars. With that money, I buy a small shop across the street from yours. Obviously, I outcompete your bikes with mine (mostly focused on chopper peddlers) with my good looks and approachable personality until you realize that working for me is more beneficial than having your own, failing company. You apply to work for me. I don't hire you. You move to the Netherlands and try to start up again. By this point, I have expanded on an international scale to the point where my stores are now attached to every single McDonalds. You have no choice but to find a new career and try what I did on ebay. AT THIS POINT, you realize that I own ebay AND the country that you're living in and I have put an arrest warrant up for you unless you join me in my bicycling tycoon of a business. You crack and can't deny that working for me would bring you riches and multitudes of women with huge crank sets. You work for a couple weeks. Then I fire you. But leave you with this wheel set that I originally purchased. It's there to remind you of how my knowledge in globalized trade and bicycles will always be far superior to yours. The ball is in your court.

Paul (4:11 PM):
Here's what I'm gonna to do. I'm going to stop the train before it starts. While my business quietly grows and our competition heightens, I'm going to start providing bike parts and repairs to politcal friends, primarily in Dane County. As I take out loans so that I can cover more markets, I always budget for scratching the back of the local politicos, while always maintaining a good guy reputation. So when you start to make your jump and invest heavily in your merger with Mc Donalds, I'm going to call in favors and have all of the land that you have bought for your new stores to be rezoned as environmental conservancies. Instantly all of your equity, brand and real estate, plummets in value. Then I leverage myself a little further to provide for the construction of bike paths in the conservancies so that I can grow my monopoly on the increasing amount of bikers, while improving the world. So after I've crushed your venture, I arrange to sell back all of my branches to local ownership saving only one branch for myself, and one for you. Then I'll take a nap, and start it all over. Maybe I'll buy myself new tires first.

Paul (4:28 PM):
What would happen if we applied all of this tenacity to the same cause. the same project. an EDGE project. This is the beginning of an empire.

Sam (4:29 PM):
It will begin to seem as you have won when you get to the point of giving me one of your stores. Beside the fact that our competition is seeded deep into our hearts of ice and fire, I find your compassion reconciling. We begin to meld our friendship as a welder combines metals. My entire being as a business tycoon is in shambles, so I begin to reap the benefits of being your friend. I work in the shop you graciously provided every day of the week, proving to you that I can work as a true man without a drop of the evil tycoon that once existed. I begin taking massage therapy classes along with bikrum yoga and pottery throwing on the side. I use the money I have made from the shop you gave me to extensively research the changing environment to the point where I realize the environment hasn't been changing at all. Only human perception. The environmental movement began as a scam and has planted itself in the daily lives of everyday people. Behind your back, I start convening upon your political friends, who by this time have graduated from county politics to state and federal positions. My extensive skills as a masseuse come in handy here, where I literally rub their backs to the point of extreme relaxation where they will sign any bill and believe just about anything I say. I do this for a couple of years, before their terms come to a close, and have them slowly present my ideas to the point where the UN is producing scientifically proven articles disproving climate change. All nationally and internationally environmental zones are once again rezoned for extreme development, opening up my shops once more. A global realization occurs over the next few years as schools change their philosophy and scientists focus on how we can get the global population to grow faster.
[10 years later]
There isn't enough room for cars anymore. Bicycles are needed to squeeze in between tight spaces and bike paths that you once created. All of your local stores are run out of business because I developed a bicycle out of a single piece of metal that is reproduced at a thunderous scale. Your store can't outcompete our prices. The bike paths you created now bring myself business. At this point, you realize your flaw in giving me that single shop and letting me get home 20 minutes late because I was at massage class at West Towne Mall.

Then we go to Uganda.