Schemedy Schemes

Whenever I make a statement about the future, I usually add the caveat "Plan subject to change." Those who've been around me for a while know that this is for a very good reason. There are few things that my brain likes quite so much as hatching a scheme. It does this regularly and, for about a week afterwards, I talk about this scheme incessantly, as though it's a real plan waiting to happen. The scheme is thus purged from my body and disappears, never to be heard of again.

Well, in case you didn't catch them the first time, here they are.

- Buying an acreage, and using it as a mock battlefield where vintage Russian and American tanks can play an oversized version of "paintball." The main staff member would be a gruff but loveable tank mechanic from the Red Army, who would curse at our guests (ie. investment bankers from RBC out on a team-building exercise) in gutteral Russian for their poor tanksmanship. I was going to name it "Tank Ball."

- Opening a bar in Costa Rica. This conceptual bar soon became a strip club. It wasn't long before I added another step: making it a strip club where half the profits would go to a charitable cause. I was going to call it "Lapdances for Justice."

- Other businesses I've wanted to open in Costa Rica include a cigar shop, condo rentals, and a resort where they pimp up your car while you're on vacation, which was inspired by my adventures in underground Nicaraguan-run repair shops.

- Connecting a fog machine to a bubble machine to make fog-filled bubbles. These would be called "fobbles" and be used at ultra-trendy dance clubs.

- Starting a business whereby I buy second-hand clothing and trinkets in Canada, and trade it with Cubans for their handicrafts. Then fly back and sell the stuff back in Canada. This may sound odd, but you can get some pretty elaborate handicrafts for a dollar-store solar calculator or an old ballcap down there. And you should see what a box of Cohibas can go for on e-bay.

- Run whiskey tours of the distilleries in Scotland. Seriously, very few hotels over there actually offer a packaged tour for tourists. I had to walk 3 miles to get to the Lagavulin distillery when I was there in October. Well, I could've taken a cab... but still.

- Start a clothing manufacturer that would make golf shirts with interesting pictures, slogans, etc. in the upper left-hand corner. It would be called badassgolfshirts.com This was inspired by the Che Guevera golf shirt I used to have, which received many compliments. Some guy in Costa Rica actually tried to buy it from me while I was wearing it.

- After reading in the Robb Report that there are is a booming millionaire demographic in China, but that they tend to have underdeveloped style (ie. mixing vintage wine with Coke, having plastic surgery like it was some kind of a plastic-person competition, opting for the Holiday Inn over the Four Seasons, etc.) hatching a plan to visit Shanghai and market myself as a style consultant to Chinese millionaires.

I think that was about it. I did actually consider doing all of these ideas at some point or another, but thought better of it before I went ahead full steam. I still have a corporation from when I decided that I wanted to start a software company - all the paperwork involved with that has made me rethink my wacky schemes. But one day... one day.