Well it’s been almost 2 years to the day…that I made my first very hopeful blog post on EN. I had just made it onto Everyday Edisons Season 3 and was very excited about the whole adventure. Proud that out of the thousands of people that went to the casting calls they had chosen to make my invention. I had said this in that original blog…

“It turns out all my struggling and building and working late into the night finally has paid off. I am one of the fortunate few to be a Season 3 Everyday Edison. A little over a year from now I will see something I created fully realized, packaged, marketed and setting on a store shelf ready for anyone to purchase.”

Well, I guess I was a tad optimistic with my estimate on when I might see my product on that store shelf considering it’s now 2 years later.

Realistically looking at what has happened and where everything is I’d say it will be at least another year before they start selling my folding baking pans and then if I’m lucky I may see a partial royalty check in January 2011 but most likely it’ll be 2012 before I see the first real full royalty check.

I find it kind of ironic that my first “real” royalty check is scheduled to come January 31st 2012, Just about a month AFTER the world is going to end according to the Myan Calendar. You know that would just be my luck. LOL!

Anyway, since that first post a lot has happened. Not only did I make it on the show I had a second item get chosen and ultimately fail through an ASOTV LPS…the Cantastic. Their site is still up and it looks like you can still buy them but I was told that they aren’t going to go beyond the test. I’m not sure if I’ll see anything from that one or not and am still waiting for EN to supply the info on it. So even though it didn’t succeed in ASOTV it did make it onto TV and they made them and I have a real one right in front of me as I write this. Not a total success. Didn’t make any money for me, won’t be around very long but hey I came up with it and someone believed in it enough to give it a shot and in my book that is pretty damn good.

I’m sure the baking pans will do better and am still amazed that World Kitchen will be making them and selling them under the Pyrex brand on QVC! I mean if that isn’t success I don’t know what is. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought a brand as well known as Pyrex would be making pans I invented! I mean come on it’s like someone coming up with a new type of soda and Coca Cola saying they want to make it, oh and by the way we’ll be selling it everywhere on the planet and it’ll be on TV too. That’s the plan for the pans. If they do well on QVC eventually you’ll be able to find them just about everywhere you see Pyrex. It’s all so hard to fathom.

Here I am 2 years later and I still can’t believe it. When that first check shows up, give or take the end of the world, I’m sure I’ll be standing their mouth agape wondering how this came to be. Hopefully it’ll be a happy mouth agape because it’s done so well beyond anything I could have possibly imagined and not a $295.33 cent mouth agape because that is all that is left after all the costs involved. Guess I’ll find out in 2012 if we are all still here. Damn Myans and their end of the world thing!

Beyond the invention itself and the show and all of that I’ve learned that if you put your mind to it and really believe in what you are doing and never give up that you really do have the power to make things happen. I could have just sat back and said nah it’s not worth the effort. What are the chances they’d choose me and my idea. Who would ever want folding pans? I didn’t do that though. I made those pans the best I could with my limited resources and I showed up that day and I did my best to convince them they’d be crazy not to choose me and make my pans. I’d say that decision turned out pretty well so far.

I will never forget seeing my wife and my children on TV all saying how much they believe in me and love me and how happy they all are for me. I mean I managed to get my kids on TV and to show them at such young ages that anything is possible if you only try. They’ve seen me win and they’ve seen me fail and both are okay in my book. Both mean something and you learn from both your successes and your failures. I’ve shown my kids it’s okay to fail as long as you don’t give up. You never really lose until you lose faith in yourself.

As I said from the beginning if this enables me to buy a better home for my family and helps me be able to put my children through college that is all I want. I don’t need anything more than that. If it doesn’t manage to do that I’ll admit I’ll be disappointed but I’ll pick myself up, move on and accept it for what it was…the greatest adventure of my life up until this point.

I’ve still got a lot of life left in me, God willing and Myans aside and I plan on having more successes, failures and adventures. All of them will make me and my family better, stronger and more accepting of the world both good and bad.

Everyday Edisons, Edison Nation and all of you here have shown me there is a lot of good and a lot of hope in the world and I will never forget that. Inventors are an amazing group of people who can do amazing things whether they be tangible or not, large or small, earth shattering or even help only a single person. If your idea lives and helps anyone it was a success. Never forget that and never give up.