Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.

 I totally missed out on an opportunity this morning.


A friend called to tell me that a big hotel in town has closed is is liquidating all of its assets.  He thought I should stop by.  I might need a chafing dish, or 75 personal sized Mr. Coffee Makers.

 The hotel was empty except for a lobby stocked with display items of sample things they have left on the seven floors above. I took the elevator up to the top. It was like the set from The Shining, after shooting.  A stray queen size mattress in room 705, a headboard in 713. Three data cables in the doorway of the sweet.  And everywhere were holes in the doors. What happened to all of the locks?

Back at the lobby I saw a sign that the entire collection of "credit card" style door locks were for sale in one lot for $3000.  I assume this included the machine to program the cards and the cards themselves, batteries, and all other hardware. My first reaction was, who would buy that?!

Then I came home tonight and looked them up.  Each of those locks sells new on Ebay for $150.  Used, they're going for at least $75. And this hotel had 150 rooms. Calculate 150 rooms X $75 per lock, that could have been a windfall of $11,000.

Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.

Not that I have $3k now because I sunk them into some bad decisions, but it's nice to know there's things like this out there.