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How to turn a paper clip into a house
AP
Published: Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Montrealer Kyle MacDonald had a red paper clip and a dream: Could he use the community power of the Internet to barter that paper clip for something better, and trade that thing for something else - and so on and so on until he had a house?
He's getting close - he's up to one year's free rent on a house in Phoenix.
Not a bad return on an investment of one red paper clip. Yet MacDonald, 26, vows to keep going until he crosses the threshold of his very own home, wherever that might be.
"It's totally overwhelming" he said. "I'm still trading for that house. It's this obsessive thing."
The story began last July. He advertised the paper clip in the barter section of craigslist.org. While he was visiting his hometown of Vancouver, two women gave him a fish-shaped pen for the paper clip.
He swapped the pen for a small ceramic doorknob with a smiley face and that for a camping stove. The stove was traded for a generator, then flipped for an "instant party package" - an empty beer keg, a neon beer sign, and a promise to fill the keg.
The beer package was exchanged for a snowmobile.
Then MacDonald appeared on television. He was asked if there was anywhere he wouldn't go to trade the snowmobile.
An obscure place came to mind, so he spit it out: Yahk, B.C., in the Rockies. Soon, a snowmobiling magazine offered an expense-paid trip to Yahk in exchange for the snowmobile.
The trip went to Bruno Taillefer, Quebec manager for the supply company Cintas Corp. in exchange for a 1995 van.
MacDonald gave the van to a musician, who offered recording studio time and a vow to pitch the finished product to music executives. The contract went to Jody Gnant, a singer in Phoenix who owns a duplex.
And that is how MacDonald has turned a paper clip into a year of shelter in the desert.
Asked what he has learned from all this, he said: "If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What the hell, right?
How to turn a paper clip into a house
AP
Published: Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Montrealer Kyle MacDonald had a red paper clip and a dream: Could he use the community power of the Internet to barter that paper clip for something better, and trade that thing for something else - and so on and so on until he had a house?
He's getting close - he's up to one year's free rent on a house in Phoenix.
Not a bad return on an investment of one red paper clip. Yet MacDonald, 26, vows to keep going until he crosses the threshold of his very own home, wherever that might be.
"It's totally overwhelming" he said. "I'm still trading for that house. It's this obsessive thing."
The story began last July. He advertised the paper clip in the barter section of craigslist.org. While he was visiting his hometown of Vancouver, two women gave him a fish-shaped pen for the paper clip.
He swapped the pen for a small ceramic doorknob with a smiley face and that for a camping stove. The stove was traded for a generator, then flipped for an "instant party package" - an empty beer keg, a neon beer sign, and a promise to fill the keg.
The beer package was exchanged for a snowmobile.
Then MacDonald appeared on television. He was asked if there was anywhere he wouldn't go to trade the snowmobile.
An obscure place came to mind, so he spit it out: Yahk, B.C., in the Rockies. Soon, a snowmobiling magazine offered an expense-paid trip to Yahk in exchange for the snowmobile.
The trip went to Bruno Taillefer, Quebec manager for the supply company Cintas Corp. in exchange for a 1995 van.
MacDonald gave the van to a musician, who offered recording studio time and a vow to pitch the finished product to music executives. The contract went to Jody Gnant, a singer in Phoenix who owns a duplex.
And that is how MacDonald has turned a paper clip into a year of shelter in the desert.
Asked what he has learned from all this, he said: "If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What the hell, right?
or is that what you youngins call it these days?
any red hair?
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