The Marx's Brothers

Guardian Storage was visited by some people whom must have failed the I. D. 10-T test. We will introduce Harpo,  Zeppo and Groucho.  That is right the Marx’s Brothers where right here on the property and what a show they put on. 

Groucho and Zeppo called in to find out if there was a parking space available for rent. It seems that Zeppo’s offspring had totaled one of the family vehicles and they needed a place to put it for 30 to 60 day until they could make it go away permanently.  Zeppo had called his good pal Groucho to help him drag this smoking wreckage across the state to the Guardian facility.  Well, being good friends and desperate for a rental of course we said yes.

When they arrived they elicited the help of their third friend Harpo.  After looking at the package that was once a car Harpo asked how they got it on top of the trailer in the first place.  It seems that Groucho and Zeppo had used a come-along to slowly drag the car up on trailer, but there was no real plan on getting it back off.  The major problem it seemed was the driver’s side front wheel was almost snapped off and had no control of where it went. Three of the four tires were flat, the drive train was busted and the engine was in no condition to turn over again.  How could the Marx’s Brothers ever get this hunk of junk into a standard parking space?  Well it was Harpo’s idea to park the trailer in the middle of the space use the come-along to get the back wheels on the ground then drive the trailer out from underneath the car, effectively dropping the broken and twisted wreckage into the space.

After hooking the come-along to Harpo’s car to give a solid base to pull against, the team watched as Groucho started wrenching the car to solid earth, but something went wrong.  As the straps were pulled tighter the wreck did not move but Harpo’s car did start to lift. No matter how much the team pushed, pulled or used engineering terms the wheels of the damaged car would not turn.  Twenty minutes our trio scratched their heads till finally it came to them….  Release the parking break. 

Yes at that point the car rolled, with just some minor coaching from Zeppo, off the trailer and into the parking spot.

You would think that I would have been rolling on the floor, tears flowing from my eyes as I observed this story unfolding.

Ah, but alas I have met Harpo and he is me…..

Some days it just doesn’t pay to be a Bob.

Now for somrthing completely diffrent

Here is a quick fun fact! We got power to our new sign

 

So what is so fun about this fact you might ask

 

The answer is in the 21 years that I have been working in storage I have asked electricians a thousand times (maybe 10 times in total) to add an electrical outlet to the outside of buildings signs and polls.  In 21 years they always forget to do such a little thing and I end up running extension cords all over the property.

If you look to the bottom of this sign, this magnificent most tricked out sign I have ever been blessed to work with, you will see an electrical outlet.  Such a small thing and such a large time saving, frustration removing gift. 

 

And in other news ...Yukon gets over run with wild turkeys!  Ok, ok, it was only two turkeys but this was in town by the post office.  Not exactly what I expected.

Patience can be a pain in the ass

Here is a nice picture of the kiosk that sits in front of the office. For the past month and a half, the printer has been on the fritz.  It started one day when a customer made a payment and the receipt kept printing.  I had to go out and turn the printer off we had already rolled about 20’ of paper out of the machine.  From this point on the printer stopped working.

I called the kiosk company and quickly found out they have field techs that can be on site instantaneously.   The reality is I am their field tech because they do not send one out… So the origanal phone call goes something like this.

Me: the printer does not work.

Them: what is it doing?

Me: not working.

Them:……………

Me: Uh, there is no power.

Them: What was it doing before the power stopped?

Me: Continuous printing, over 20 feet of paper without printing anything you can read.

Them: It is a communication cable problem.

Me: But there is no power.

Them: We are sending you a new cable call us when arrives next week.

Me: But the printer is not working now.

A week goes by and the communication cable shows up, so I call the company and they politely (they are very nice people) tell me to install the cable and to call them back. 30 minutes latter I finally get the cable in.  This cable is held in by 20 + zip ties. I call the company back and they say…

Them: Now turn on the power.

Me: The power switch is on.

Them: Can you see the test page?

Me: ….No… there still is no power.

Them: We will send you a new printer.

Me: And that will fix the power issue.

Them: And we will send you a new power supply.

Me: Thank you

Them: It will arrive in about a week.

It did arrive in a week but I was on vacation that week so two weeks later I call the company and say I have the printer now what? 

At this point I am going to stop typing the dialog because the installation of the new printer and new power supply took a couple of hours and several calls.  It was not very fun and there was a whole bunch of zip ties that had to be cut.  This is the point I realized they did not send any zip ties to replace they ones that had to be cut.  Duct Tape to the rescue.

This time when they asked for the power to be turned on it did come on. And the printer started spitting out 20 to 30 ft. of paper.  Almost four weeks have gone by and we are back to the original problem.  I stand out at the kiosk for another hour while they run test to no avail.  The answer is “We need to do some research on this”.  The following Monday I call back to follow up. “Hey guys it has been a couple of days have we figured out anything on this printer situation”.  The answer is that I need a specialist to call me and to work this problem.  The truth is I have needed as specialist to come over to the property and fix this printer four and a half weeks ago…..  Wednesday of last week I got a call and was talking to the specialist and he loaded drivers and reloaded drivers, he tested the printer and he retested the printers. He even would hang up the phone because what he was trying was going to take a while then he would call back and test the printer and retest the printer. Finally in the end 5 and ½ weeks later I have a working printer.

 

This is a look at the final days testing of the printer aftermath.  I have seen the inside of that machine just a little too much.

Sometimes I do not think very clear

There have been days when I go to bed and think can I just have a re-due.

I spent a lot of time in my car today because I could not get my brains in to anykind of order.  For example I needed to take some duct tape, a hamer, one nail, and a "aa" battery to Access Storage.  After three trips out I still had not remember a single Item on that list. So when I finlly get fed up with not remembering I stoped by Lowes and bought a hammer, some picture hangers an took them back to Access.
"Look " I said walking in the door "I have gifts"  I produced the hammr and the hangers with pride. John looks at me for a second and says " and the 'aa' batteries"?
Aw crap! I stood right next to the "aa" batteries and never thought about picking them up.

Now the kicker.

What about the duct tape?

My brain scares me sometimes.