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When you think of a company or even a website your first impression is that there are several employees with many positions. In truth A and A World has been ran for the last 15 years by just my wife and I, well almost. My wife and I started A and A 15 years ago as my passion for old motorcycles was so great that I could not see how someone could grab a bike from the past and just let them rust away with time in a backyard. I do not know how I managed to convince my wife to allow me to take out a $25,000 loan to purchase used, old rusted motorcycles from around the US. Needless to say, I used up the money within a few months as I was not known to haggle and would purchase pretty much any bike at any price that was asked even if the bike was worth less. I rented an 800 square foot warehouse where I put over 80 motorcycles. Stacked one beside the other with only a small little space at the back I was able to work on them and get them up and running again. My wife also had a little section where she would do all the accounting and paper work. Since I spent all the money on buying the motorcycles I never really thought of keeping any money for parts and other overheads therefore I had to make do with what I had. Perhaps 90% to 98% of the motorcycles I restored back to the day they came out of the dealership were done without having to purchase items for them. That’s right I would fix and repair the parts myself and would spend countless hours cleaning and buffing rusted chrome and parts. A front fender from an 80’s bike that was rusted would take me one or two weeks just to get it back to how it was. You can imagine the amount of work that would go into a motorcycle. I obviously also had another job and was the Marketing Manager for a very big insurance company. During 8 to 5 I was walking around in a suit and tie and having all sorts of meetings and from 7 to around 1 am I was in the shop working on the bikes. Would sleep about three to maybe four hours per day. I loved it and so did my wife who would spend all day in the shop working on paper work and going crazy trying to pay the bills. A shop that had no air-conditioning and she worked at the end of the shop and would work with the shop closed as she was alone. Oh, by the way we are located in the sunny, hot, very hot Miami FL. I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis when I was eight years old. I have been in and out of hospitals my entire life. Although, I was always the sick kid, I never let it get to me. I always thought that although I may have a shot life I was going to make the best out of it. For some reason I developed a passion for Motorcycles, Cars, computers and pretty much everything else at a very early age. I loved to restore and repair things that broke. Even though I may had never worked on something you would see me a lot of times inside a TV set or a radio or even on a motorcycle or car trying to fix them. As I grew my passion became more towards repairing cars and motorcycles and airplanes. I decided to go College and become an Aero Space Engineer and also a Pilot. Never made it to the engineer part but did become a private pilot. Moved down to Miami FL and did not follow the flying and become a white collar manager and CEO for several companies but never felt right as I always liked to work and get my hands dirty. With the Shop I had that. I was able to get away and although my breathing was becoming harder and harder and I would always be tired of pulling over 18 hours per day of work I never let my CF take over. The word got out about our little shop and how this guy loved to work on older bikes and charged very little for service and restorations and did great jobs. Slowly we grew, then we got bigger and eventually had to move to a bigger shot. Then we had to move to even a larger space and hire mechanics as I could not keep up. My wife and I realized a little to late what was happening. We all of a sudden had employees, contracts with several companies telling us what to do, insurance, permits, you name it we had to have it. My wife and I realized we traded the fun of fixing and repairing for stress and boring meetings. All that came to a stop in 2008 when I was told my CF was getting so bad that I would need to be put in the lung transplant list and I would probably not be able to ride, work or do much as I was on so much oxygen that even walking a few steps would get me winded. I got worse, really bad to the point that I felt I was breathing through a straw. I was always tired and could barely get up from bed. In April 15th 2010 I received the call that they had a donor and I had my double lung transplant. Since then I have had several rejections but still doing much better than I was before. Since I no longer can ride motorcycles and really have to make sure I am not around anything that will get me sick I have limited myself to find for products that are great, at least great in my eyes. A and A sells anything from motorcycle parts to children’s clothing. We are American pickers but instead of on the road we pick on the net. So I guess we are American Internet Pickers. |
