So right now i am going through some SHYT

Hope you'll be feeling better soon there Liberty. I guess one thing's obvious, your body's telling you to slow down. People need at least one day off each week, totally apart from work, to rest and unwind. I hope you'll consider making room for that. Best of luck there man

The best thing you can do is stay positive you don't need the added stress of negativity so keep your head up!. If you have to go back to the hospital do it! Take care of your health first and foremost since there no point of money or things if your not alive to enjoy them. Living as healthy as possible when your sick and stressed is the best thing you can do. Good luck.

Sorry to hear of your pain and losses.
Hang in there !

have you thought about writing a letter to your accounts just to give them some reassurance that your the guy they want to be dealing with?

Hope the best for you and your health.

Hey Liberty.... just getting around to reading this post. I appreciate the shout out! You however are the one long overdue for public recognitition...

Let me start by emphasizing to others on this forum, how important it is to network, and how useful this forum is for doing just that! I started scraping in August and as any of you know, the learning curve is rough and I made my fair share of mistakes. This forum did help to minimize those mistakes and helped prevent other ones I would have made. I'm a part-time scraper and don't actually know anyone else in person that does this kind of work. Because of that I have no one to talk to or bounce ideas off of (in person anyway). This forum is fantastic, don't get me wrong! It's just that with a full-time job, trying to scrap before the sun goes down after work, two kids in diapers back home, and just life in general - I don't have enough time to constantly type up forum posts on all the topics that bounce around in my head! (and if I did, I think admin would ban me!)

A little over a month ago I reached out for Liberty via a PM and wanted to network with him since he is in my local area and I had read several of his posts and found them to be very helpful. So I contact him out of the blue. He was receptive to my message, although a bit stand-offish at first. He agreed to meet me and came out to a small job I was doing in the area. Afterwards we ended up showing me his setup and his trucks. We shot the breeze for a few hours and discussed our drastically different life circumstances yet shared similarities in working in scrap metal. It was great to actually talk to another human being about scraping! So we met up a couple times after that and it was really helpful getting advice from a full-time scraper like Liberty. Fast forward a few days... after work I head over to a client's house and as I go to back into the driveway my transmission fails to go in reverse (ended up having to replace the transmission). And to make matters worse, I was on a dead-end street!!

Keep in mind - I work my full-time job 1 1/2 from where I live. This scrap job I was doing after work was near my work. I have friends and family back home 1 1/2 hours away - but I don't know anyone who lives near where I work. So... I pull into a dead end street with my truck (oh yeah - and trailer!) and all the sudden can't backup! Forward was working no problem. Street wasn't wide enough to pull a u-turn without tearing up the neighbor's lawn and pissing off the whole neighborhood (this was a week long job by the way - so I would be back at least a few more times - bad blood with the neighbors is not good for business). So, I was really in a pinch. I couldn't call a tow truck because I would have had to leave my trailer behind and didn't have anywhere to put it - plus no lock for the hitch - didn't want that sucker to get stolen.

Side note - If you haven't read my intro - I am scraping because I'm super broke - and literally pay for my commute with the money I make scraping, and week to week I struggle to have enough gas to get to and from work. I have such a long commute because we are temporarily living with my in-laws since my wife has been out of work going on 3 years and we're both drowning in student loan debt!

So anyway... calling a tow truck (and having to pay for it) was not an option due to finances anyhow. So I'm bugging out. Stuck in a bad spot... I had an 1/8 tank of gas and only $15 in my account at the time - all of which was earmarked for getting me home that night. Part of the problem with my cash flow was also that I had money tied up in two jobs - I have been working with home owners and buying copper pipes and wiring from storm damaged houses before they are torn down. So I had paid both home owners but not yet sold off the scrap for profit. I was left holding alot of metal from those jobs because when copper dropped so quickly I was hoping for a rebound. Anyhow... back to the story at hand. I though - hey, let me call Liberty! Sure enough he answered right away. Turns out he was only 5 minutes from the street I was stuck on. He and one of his guys come by - laugh at me a bit then spring into action. They unhooked my trailer, helped me do a k-turn by pushing me in reverse. Then they manually pulled my trailer around and I was good to go! My entire life shattering problem was solved in 5 minutes thanks to Liberty! And I only got to know Liberty because of this forum and because I took the initiative to network with another scraper in my area!

Liberty understood that I was broke and didn't ask for a thing in return. Because of him I was able to work on that client's house that day and pull out enough materials to pay for 2 weeks worth of gas. I later sold the rest of the copper I had stockpiled to pay for the transmission repairs ($1,200 between getting a used transmission from a junk yard and paying the mechanic to put it in). Truck was actually just finished today and is ready for pick-up as soon as I get home (Which I'm stoked about because it's been a long 2 weeks not having a truck! Especially since the weather has been beautiful the past 2 weekends and people have been doing their spring cleaning! I've had to pass on so many great opportunities because I've been stuck driving a sedan).

So as far as public thanks go - Liberty, you are the f'ing man! Without your assistance that day, I don't know what I would have done. A few days later yes, you got sick and I went to visit you in the hospital and brought you some reading material, but seriously, that nothing compared to how you've helped me over the past few weeks! I'll echo everyone else's sentiments about getting better soon and taking care of yourself first and foremost - but I also keep telling you that in person. I know you had a ****ty day today with that non-paying client, so I though today was a good day to write a long overdue thank you post for all you have done to help me. Hang in there buddy. The good days wouldn't feel so good without the bad ones.