Hi Everybody,

I don't blog much and I haven't blogged in a while.  I mainly like to lurk around and comment.  I haven't done much of that lately because I had a house fire in January.  If you want to have some miserable work to do around the house, try cleaning up after a fire.  AND WE WERE LUCKY.  There wasn't much damage compared to what we could have had.

While I was gone, Ddskitty took up a collection for me.  I'd like to thank her and everybody who contributed.  I've been working on looking all those folks up to thank them, and I'm going to email them all soon.  There is a nice community here, and I worry now about it disappearing.

When I got back to the blogs in a limited fashion, I discovered all kinds of hoopla about the restructuring of eBay and a strike.  I didn't understand all of that until recently because I didn't have time to understand it.  But I understand it now.

eBay doesn't value or respect my business.  The changes they are implementing favor large sellers and will cripple smaller sellers.  I'll "save" money only if my items don't sell.  The massive Final Value Fees make a lot of my items not worth selling.  There have even been some dismissive words from John Donahue about the front page looking like a "flea market."  A flea market is a lot of sellers gathering to sell.  Isn't that what eBay is?  I think those words were aimed at people who aren't creating empires within eBay.  There is nothing wrong with empire building, but I think those words are were a warning to the smaller sellers, the ones who built eBay in the beginning.

So there is a strike, and I've seen some harsh words on the blogs about the strikers.  Personally, I'd like to thank the strikers.  I'd like to give a special shoutout to jcarolek and madcat, two Powersellers I know of who are striking for the little guy. 

The little guy is ME.  And the little guy is a lot of you, too.  The strikers aren't taking food out of small sellers' mouths.  eBay is going to do that.