The America Dream (from a bit of a cynic)

Since my overly-patriotic, Republican, high school days, I've become a bit of a cynic, and politcally apathic and defeatist.  But then a few weeks ago, I had an ephiany.  I was up past my bed time hand sewing little pieces of velcro onto a table skirt I had spent the last three hours ironing and hemming, and then ironing a bit more with my flat iron because my real iron up and died (I know, I know, whoa is me).  Greg was leaving in the morning for Florida for his first big trade show and the debute of his product.  And I was hand sewing velcro on to his table skirt to make his booth look amazing.  And my ephiany: he was bootstapping it.  Benjamin Franklin style.  We both came from comfortably middle-class backgrounds, so I hadn't thought of us (Greg really) as pulling ourselves up from nothing because we don't come from nothing.  We come from comfortable.  But at the same time, Greg's getting the American dream.  He's not listening to "them" anymore.  He doesn't have a boss.  He's doing what he wants.  He found a problem and he's building a business to solve it.  He's a capitalist.  And I'm grateful.  I'm grateful that he's finally found a job that he really loves.  That he's found a boss that he's not smarter than.  That he's using all his crazy, pent-up engery in the way he's been wanting to for so long.  And I'm sure he could do all this in other countries too, but here it has a name--The American Dream.  And it's still around and still real.  And even though the cynic in me wants to site our white, middle-class, college-educated background as the reason for our success and point out that non-white, working class people don't have the same opportunities as we do, the part of me that was wishing I had a thimble was just grateful and amazed at all the things that Greg has done and grateful that we live in a place that let's him do it.  USA! USA!  (Ok, let's not get too crazy here.  I still kind of want to move to Denmark because they ride bikes every where, but it's just so dang cold).

On a side note, Greg runs his company out of a shared work space for other start ups.  The other entrepreneurs there were very impressed with the "boot strapping" van he rented to get all his gear down to the conference in Florida. (The big companies have their stuff shipped but that costs a lot more than Greg's bootstrapping budget allowed).

And in case you were wondering: the conference went really well.  Every one was really impressed with the way his booth looked (I didn't hear any specific compliments about my table skirt--they were too awed by my workmanship to say anything).  They loved his swag (sun glasses with Verifrieght's logo and micro drones).  Oh, and they liked his product.  So much so that I spent the next three nights after his return entering all the business cards he collected into his online rolledex.  He's also spent the last couple of weeks on follow up calls and other such busniessy things. But things are going well and seems as if all his bootstrapping will pay off soon.