So it has been a minute since I had a new blog post. I wrote a couple of them out but the first ones felt a little too uninspired. The last one was a tribute to my grandpa who passed away but it was a little too personal and not really handicap related at all and I have not shared it at this time, I might at some point. Work has been a little crazy and then I got a head cold which has also influenced my lack of posts.
Now that I am done making excuses for my lack of activity, I have a few thoughts to share. Like I always do, I have been thinking about business ventures that I could start or buy. Sometimes they overflow with things that I would like for myself and sometimes they don’t. The idea that I have been mulling over for a few weeks now, definitely does overlap and is even sort of listed on my website. I want a handicap accessible big truck (semi, 18 wheeler, big rig, whatever your term is for them).
I guess in a way, I see what you could make as a job with a big truck, and that is sort of appealing to me. For me, I would be wanting to try to find a way to do something like haul logs with dad. It would be an opportunity to make money as well as spend more time with him, in a nostalgic sort of way, as I miss working in the woods with him. In a realistic sense though, I don’t know how practical doing something like that would be. I don’t know that my shoulders would allow me to drive that much and you would have to invent a few tools to help you get the job done. I am up for the challenge of inventing some of it and think that could be fun but that doesn’t really answer the shoulder questions.
That did send me down a path of thoughts on a business though. What if, instead of worrying about building something like that for me, I got into making it for others. It is a little crazy in a way, but at the same point I can envision a market for it. Big companies are always looking for drivers, and I know there has to be people like me (who unlike me, are stuck on disability right now) that really do want to work. I could see people like vocational rehabilitation (voc rehab, a state of Missouri program designed to help keep the disabled community in the work force and off of disability) being semi interested in helping fund the conversions once you get established. I would think the key to becoming established is getting a large company that has a large fleet of trucks that would be interested in the project and would invest in making it happen.
My other thought of how to start a business like this would be to start a big truck body shop. Basically that would allow for you to learn the ins and outs of the structure of the cabs and sleepers to help aid you in designing this system for accessibility. You can get there without doing this by spending time hunting down totaled out trucks in junk yards and places so I guess it is all just how a person wants to start it.
I remember talking to a bunch of people about how much nerve it took to start cutting on a brand new truck to make it accessible like they did on my pickup. Now I am the crazy one talking about doing it on a truck that costs way more than my pickup ever did. I have some other thoughts on some of the other parts of it that would probably need to be included with it such as a power creeper or power hood for your daily inspection stuff.
Overall I think it could be a successful venture with the right people and I will keep mulling it over and talk to a few contacts to see if I can make it feasible. Thanks for reading!