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So I got an email on Sunday night saying that Mayor Menino was going to mention Geekhouse in his annual State of the City address which took place last night (I’m at the 8:27 section). At first I didn’t really know much about it. But then Monday I found out that the whole event would be broadcast live on Chanel 5 Boston, and that I had a reserved seat in one of the front rows at the event, which would be held in prestigious Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston.
If I haven’t mentioned this before in December I got a loan from the City of Boston to help purchase some necessary manufacturing equipment, and also provide the ability to hire 1-2 employees to help out with fabrication. This whole process involved a lot of time and effort. I sought out help from Score a division of the Boston SBA in reviewing a detailed business plan I wrote myself. And of course I had a lot of support from my amazing lawyer Joel Kinney of Goldstein and Herndon in Chestnut Hill. So after about 6 months of planning and effort I was finally approved for the loan. Also, a big thanks to Bill Nickerson and everyone from the BLDC for all their help with getting that done!
So back to the event last night. I ended up bringing my girlfriend Andrea, my Mom and two sisters Corie and Katty, and also Josh from Open Bicycle. I was told we had reserved seating, but when we walked in there were two levels, and upper and lower. The security guard blocked us when I tried to walk into the lower section, and I told him the I was Marty Walsh and we had reserved seating. His response was, “Oh yes Mr. Walsh, someone will show you to your seats.” Now, there’s also a state rep named Marty Walsh, so my response to him was “No, I’m the other Marty Walsh, not the State Rep Marty Walsh.” And he then said. “Oh no, we know who your are, I’ll have someone show you to your seats.”
The whole thing was pretty surreal. We had 4 seats which all had Marty Walsh written of them in the front row of the right side of the room. Then there were two seats for me and Andrea only a few rows back from the front row, which included Gov Deval Patrick, and the Mayor’s wife. My thoughts through the whole thing were; holy crap why the hell am I here with all these important people? Sitting right next to me was a guy who was first on the scene to the firefighter accident last week, I believe he actually saved one of the firefighters lives. And on the other side was a guy giving away like a million dollars to the Boston public schools. So out of all the people in the city who did amazing things this past year, we were the three that the Mayor mentioned. I still feel that I don’t deserve that kind of attention, and this isn’t something that I sought out. But hey I’ll take the free press, haha!
After the event my sister Corie made me go get a picture with the Mayor, and I told him thank you. I then met the Allston Rep, who went and introduced me to the State Rep Marty Walsh. I also shook hands with Secretary Galvin and a few other respectable Bostonians. The whole thing was really pretty amazing but also a little ridiculous. A few Boston firefighters shook my hand and said nice job and thank you. My response no them was “No, thank you guys, your awesome!” haha, like I said the whole thing was just pretty surreal.
Anyway, after all that I couldn’t sleep last night and I got in the shop a little after 7am this morning and I’m anxious to just get back to business as usual. Now I just have to see if my fat head still fits in my welding helmet. Anyway, thanks for listening!
-Marty Walsh (not the State Rep)
Happy New Year! Things have been crazy at the shop as usual. Thanks to the city of Boston, we’re using some of that loan money to buy some new tools. This means that I can finally set up the powder coat oven and spray booth. So this past month I had to build two new rooms inside out shop, one for the powder spray booth and oven, and one for the air compressor and sand blaster. Powder coating has been one of the most difficult things to get perfect and I’ve been working with outside vendors for the past few years each one requiring a lot of quality control. Now I finally have the ability to do this in house and that is truly huge; I can’t wait to get going on this! So the whole shop is going through some renovations as we get all of that done and a few more necessary tools are on the way as well. It’s a ton of work, but by the spring we’ll really be able to crank out some beautiful bikes made 100% in house.
Also, next month is the NAHBS show which I’m officially attending, and I’m trying to get 3 bikes and a tradeshow booth built for that. At first I was going to have all three frames sublimated. Then I was going to have them all done here at my shop. But time is running out for everything and the shop is still in the process of getting dialed, so I decided to have all these bikes just done in some beautiful solid colors at Spectrum Powderworks. My show bikes aren’t going to be over the top ridiculous like some of the bikes I’ve built in the past. But I’m really happy with what I’ve got planned and I’m looking forward to the show.
So if I’m a little behind on emails and blog updates over the next month its because I’m busy getting the shop back up and running and getting all the bikes ready for NAHBS. But by next month I’ll have all that stuff done, and it’ll all be worth it.
Thanks guys!
-Marty
