Many people are aware that crypto currency mining is quite profitable right now, especially with GPU mining rigs. I've been mining with the couple computers that I already owned, for about 6 months now. I've mined about a thousand dollars of bitcoin, much of which I've invested in steem.
This winter I considered buying the parts to make a 6 GPU mining rig. Even though I didn't have the extra money to invest, I justified it because I have no choice but to heat my house with electricity. I estimated about $200-300 per month, averaged over the 8 or so months that I need to heat my place. So I figured I could get one rig going to replace about 1/3 of the power I currently use for heat. If it generated enough to pay the whole power bill, it would be worth it and would pay for itself over about a year. Of course there's risks but I felt like the market was growing and now is a good time to get in.
Come December 16th, I convinced myself it was now or never and put together my order, paid for on my high interest credit card. All items I ordered were listed in stock that day from one somewhat local supplier (I won't mention their name) except for a couple of GPU's which I ordered from NewEgg, since the other supplier had a limit on their GPU's. The order from NewEgg shipped the next morning and I got it two days later. The order from my other supplier had yet to be invoiced or shipped. The week went by and I lost hope of getting everything before Christmas, but I didn't really expect to during the busy holidays. Boxing day came and went, and later that week still no shipment. I contacted the company to inquire and was told that the motherboard I had ordered was not in stock and would not arrive until Jan 4th. The rest of the order was preparing to ship. I decided to order a different motherboard that was in stock and cancel the first one. This was confirmed but then a few days later, my order had still not been processed and the motherboard was now out of stock. Finally after a few slightly annoyed sounding emails, I was told that everything would ship on Friday, the 29th. In the company's defense, they did have a very bad snow storm and power outages combined with holiday business, staff shortage etc. so I understand. At least it was on its way and had to get here sometime this week right?
Monday was New Year's Day, today is Friday, and so far I have only received my motherboard. For some reason the order was split between three different warehouses spread across the country. The shipment links tell me to expect two of the shipments by yesterday, and the other one by next Wednesday. Well, seeing as I need all the components to make this work, looks like I will be setting up my rig next weekend, a full four weeks after I ordered. I'm sure it's not the longest anyone has waited to get their hands on mining stuff.
Yes I realize this was my own fault for ordering in the middle of the holiday rush, but I can still be a little upset and disappointed. I was really looking forward to setting up over the holidays when I had some extra time and could get a handle on the constantly changing world of mining. Now I've wasted a full month of prime mining time, when everything has been really high. Meanwhile I'm paying high interest on that money to my credit card cartel. Not only that but it's been -15 to -20 here for the last couple weeks. I could really use that free heat from a 1500 watt miner!
I was going to get into what I don't like about GPU mining and GPU's selling by truckloads to mining farms with deep pockets, meanwhile gamers and casual miners pay well above MSRP if they are lucky enough to even get a GPU, but I'll save that for another rant. I can't even call this a rant, I'm not that mad, my stuff is on the way and it's only money anyway, not worth worrying much about. There are far more important things to focus on right now, like the Earth probably being Flat. Just like with bitcoin and steem, I could kick myself for not buying more when it was cheap, but I'm happy with the little bit I have being worth so much right now. Focus on your haves, not your have-nots, right?
And here is an unrelated picture I took of the river misting in the morning sun, for lack of a better thumbnail.
it can take a while