As if I didn't have enough things to spend our money on, today I bought a jeep. Yuppers, it is true.
White Boy is officially dead and now Odison Eto has joined our Hulk's crew.
These days we meet up with random sponsors around the city, visit suppliers, take Hulkies out for dinner on Saturdays, host social outings outside of the club for members, and every week we're always driving someone home from training. We don't mind the extra driving because it's quite fun spending more time with our Hulkies, I know they appreciate it, and I know it means the difference to some with whether or not they can even come train. But no wheels means no such luck with getting them home. That's how many clubs and academies do it in Korea, especially when they have such young members, they drive their members home. My former club never did but I know the boxing clubs some of my buddies here in Korea own do and many of the local Taekwondo clubs also do it. We used to have an official club van, I called it Lady Ghini because Wow gave it to us, and she drove not only our Hulkies but also my Flipside Fitness ladies around town. As for the name, Lady Ghini, well you see Wow had the Lamborghini but such a sports car wasn't suitable for us. A van was perfect -- it was comfortable and it could hold all our stuff and people, so we called it Lady Ghini. When Hulk's was an official go, we slapped our Hulk name unto her sides. But then some middle aged Korean women decided to do an illegal u-turn and clobber into Snickers, totally our club van. Since then, we've taken on whatever vehicles our main sponsor and friends can pass down to us.
We have one member who specifically took a part time job by our club so that she could pay for her membership and be closer to our club. She lives so far from Hulk's and to travel an hour by public transportation really eats up her day. But now she comes to Cheonan station around noon for work and then at 6pm, when she finishes, she comes to our club to train. She usually stays until 10pm, the last bus. She's not the only one who has a long commute however, there are many others, and so we're always driving someone home. Usually on Mondays we host After-Hour parties and then drive everyone home because the buses have stopped and it's too late to be walking around, same with often those who come for weekend Free Train and eat out with us.
I bought a jeep only because thank goodness I've got a good crew of friends who sell cars here and are able to sniff out amazing deals like a hunting hound dog. They totally hooked us up with quite the deal and even got a grand knocked off when they pleaded our case with the original owner. Turns out Odison Eto's now-former owner is a huge boxing fan, sweet!! This jeep cost us less than two grand which is pretty dang cheap but still pretty expensive when you figure all the bills I have rolling into the club. I can't help but think if only we hadn't accidentally popped one of White Boy's tires. We'd still be driving with a bent axle and messed up frame, but we wouldn't have had to buy a replacement vehicle. I'm sure eventually we would have had to but right now the timing is pretty bad. If it were any worse, this would have happened in December, right smack dab when we had to cough of several grand to deal with the heat, well the lack of heat that is.
I was hesitant as to whether to buy it or not but I had told Snickers that if we sold a 6 month membership this week then I'd agree to it. We do need it, despite me not publicly admitting to it.
We sold a one year membership today. It was to one of our current members, he was renewing his previous year's one year membership. We don't sell these often. Our three month membership is the most popular, then our one month, and then our 6 month membership. Our one year membership gives you about a $400 saving but it's a big chunk of change to drop at once. Consequently, I've only sold four memberships, with two of them now being purchased by the same person.
Today's one year membership paid for more than half of that jeep but it definitely hurt my eyes to see that money in my hand one minute and then being handed over to someone else's hands the next minute. Such is the price of business. Money comes in and money goes out. It just seems like these days more money is going out than coming in and I wished it'd linger longer on my fingertips than what it does in reality.
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