As many of you know I am retired. I work on special projects for a friend of mine who owns a airplane repair shop to help with the cost of my airplane. I became a "expert" in a plane called a Paris Jet. The expert claim is not my words but from the FAA. A friend bought a Paris Jet that was in a shipping container, wings, engines and tail were in a separate container. We hired a expert from France who spoke no English. We had the manuals in English and French, we would point to a section and we would put that part together, if done right he would give us a thumbs up, if wrong he would turn his back to us. That plane was done and auctioned off at the biggest Air Show in the U.S. Another guy bought a Paris Jet at my home airport. We have been taking care of it, his friend did a "hot start", that caused a explosion in the number 2 engine, we had to replace the complete tail section at that time. He was afraid of the plane after that along with the FAA restricting pilots from flying that type of plane without special training every year. He donated the plane to the C.A.F. A guy from the Houston area bought it sight unseen. He contacted my friend and wanted the plane back to flying condition as a toy for him. Matt then asked me if I wanted the job. I have a love hate relationship with these planes, there are only a handful left flying. I didn't want to say no so I contacted the soon to be new owner. I told him it would be 45 hours for the annual, 5 hours for the fuel and engine service, 16 hours for a detail of the paint and interior and any problems I found would be extra. I also told him the plane burns 130 gallons per hour of fuel, there are other planes out there that would be cheaper. I was trying to talk him out of it. He asked about upgrading the panel, I told him we used a company in Chino for that, budget around 110K for what he wanted. So with our labor rate of $90 per hour he would have close to 200K in a plane worth 90K. After a day he called back and said he likes the look of the plane and wanted to do all work. I said we need 20 hours payment to start work and he needs to contact the other shop for the panel upgrade. Less then an hour later his assistant called and paid, the other shop called and said they were paid. For the last month I have been working on this plane for 3 days per week. I found 15 extra hours of work needed, when all was said and done he paid as fast as we could bill him and send videos of the work done. Looks like I finally get to meet him on Wednesday. We wanted to come out Tuesday but I told him I was having surgery on my knee that day. I have never meet him yet but I can say he is a man of his word. He paid on time, no questions asked. I spent some extra time as I wanted to keep up our end of the deal. He did ask if we would come out next year to do the annual on it, offers to pay us more for travel. Here is the old girl, I actually will take pride in showing him his toy for the first time.