It's Back And We Are So Happy.

We have found a home and that means the shop comes out of storage, Yeah!!! Four months and one week is way too long to be without your power tools. In fact I believe Linda has had a case of withdraws. That’s right my wife is just as much into the wood shop as I am. Boy did I marry well.  I do make jokes a lot but when it comes to my wife she is the love of my life, mother of my boys, and the one who tries to keep all my fingers attached to the rest of me.

So a week ago we finally move into a house here in Yukon, the best part of it was I was training Cub Scout Leaders so I was not in town. Linda gets a crew of friends and indentured servants (that would be Joshua) and they got the job done. The fact that they did get done not only surprises me but filled me with pride. You see our 350 Sqft of storage includes 100 Sqft of lumber. Hard woods, soft woods, Plywood, and planks are just the start. I have had to move this 4 times already in my life and each time it is a butt kicker. When I got home all the tools and all the wood was in the garage. Wow! The only problem is that it needed to be organized before anything was getting built.

 

Where could I find an Organizer to help with that?  Oh yeah, that would be us!

So today is the end of our first week here and we need a kitchen table. No problem, I can knock out a table in a day… except… the room needs organized first. So by three in the afternoon I actually got started on the legs, and that is as far as I got

Don’t panic! A lot of good things got done today. First we went to the Chamber coffee this morning and represented LRDezine with pride.

 

 We turned in our rental agreement so we won’t be squatters here. We went to Lowes and picked up a pocket hole jig (that also means we had to learn how to use it.  I so hate instructions). Luckily the jig came with a DVD. How did I ever live without one. 

So as this day runs out of gas, I will call it quits till the a.m.  Tomorrow I will try to finish the table.

Auction and More

It has been a long January and the truth be told I have not felt like blogging …. Sorry…. But I am back with lots to tell.

First let me tell you the first and most important thing will have to wait till anther time … and again sorry… but now for the fun parts.  Auction time is coming!

 

In the last auction, we had two of the units get bought back less than 24 hours before the auction.  It seems like most of the units that I have seen saved at the last minute end back on the auction block.  Why this is I can only surmise, one if it takes you to the last second to raise the money to save the unit once, you will probably not be able to do it twice.  Once in Pasadena, we had the same unit go to auction 3 times before it finally sold. What a waste of money.  There is another type of personality that thinks that if they only pay for the storage when it is going up to auction, then they have saved the three months of rent.  I have had customers try to explain this theory to but I just don’t get it.  I don’t think Dave Ramsey would understand it either.

My auction is the 19^th and where I hate the prep work for an auction, auction day is always fun.

Another big change is I have merchandise to sell.  This is cool on several reasons. First is the long range foot traffic that will build as we get to be known for moving and packing supplies.  Another reason is the instant impact that people will have when they come into an office and it looks like a real store.

Look Who is back

 

Two days later and look who’s back.  Pole, hole digging equipment and cement were all present this time. They even had a crane to lift the pole into position. When I looked out my window I could even see some markings of the UCIC workers who marked the utilities. I placed a call a call to Deb and informed her that that the sign guys are back and they are working.  This made everyone happy.  I figured as long as I did not show my face or interrupt in any way, we might get a poll today.

 

I did sneak out from time to time to see how things are going, but I keep my distance. It takes them most of the day to get the poll up.  By the time that John and I were pulling money from the Car Wash the cement was just starting to go into the hole.  I asked John if it would be ok for me to go to the foreman and tell him that I just got off the phone with my boss and he said the pole is in the wrong spot. John thought for a moment and said lets just wait till they are gone and then we can move the poll to some other part of the property.  There is something wrong with us that makes us want to poke the tiger with a stick. 

After they left I went to get a close up of the work. Remember the underground utilities markings that I was seeing thismorning? Well the markings were no where near the hole.

Here is a bit of interesting facts, or a story of timing.

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Today I noticed a large pole sitting on a truck out by the street. It looked like this…

 

Since I did not know that the new sign was coming in, I went out to check out what was happening.  I met the closest thing to a foreman. He introduced me to the boss, who did know all sorts of facts.  The sign is going to look great. Well I left the group and called the office.   I got a hold of Debbie and started asking too many questions. (I have a way of doing that, in fact I really need to do something about that).

After talking to Debbie and Don for a few minutes, we needed to check if they were digging in the right spot.  You would think when they get to this point everyone would know exactly where the pole is going.  In the six weeks since the check was signed I have never seen anyone on property measuring or checking anything, so double checking may not be a bad thing.  Well get a load of this story. 

 

I started asking questions about the location and the foreman guy started acting a little weird.  One he would not stop working when I asked if we were in the right spot. Even the fact that where they were digging was busting up the concrete.  My statement to them was that my boss thought it was going to be on the south end of that parking area.  He tells me I should talk to his boss, so I went to talk to his boss.  Guess what, he wasn't there anymore he was on his way to another town. I make it back to the foreman and he has his guys filling in the hole and packing up.  What is up I asked. And he said that since I didn’t want the pole here that he was canceled the cement and they were leaving. I asked if a 20 ft difference was worth canceling the job over and he jumps into my face.  Very strange moment, this guy moves in pretty dam close to my face and yells- do you know if there is a gass line under the ground, well do ya! ( I would love to say I calmly answered him back) I raised my voice and say that as a matter of fact I was not a gas line expert and I had no idea what was under the ground.  So he and his guys left.

 

 

Jump ahead 3 hours,  it just so happens that the guy who marked the utility lines for this project is a tenant of ours and he stopped by the property on a storage run.  Well John and I got to talking about this incident and showed him were they were digging.  It comes to light that where they ordered the survey was at the complete opposite side of the entire strip mall.

 

  These guys were digging in an area that was not marked and were very close to some high pressure gas lines. If they had continued to dig they could have been fined a bunch of money or hit a line and blown themselves apart. Tomorrow morning I will be letting my bosses know.  My wife Linda pointed out that sometimes God works through conflict to save us from even worse fates.

Robert Reynolds
321 S CEMETERY RD
YUKON, OK 73099-6441
United States

Cement is not that hard

It has taken me a few days to get back in the saddle here at the storage, but that is the natural way of things when you are gone for a week.  Monday was kind of rough but not unbearable. Tuesday was just a repeat of Monday.  Wednesday now there was a day. If ever there was a day that was needed it was Wednesday.

If I haven’t mention there is a donut shop moving in across the driveway from my office.  The construction has been moving along, but not as fast as I thought it would.  Well today was cement day at the donut shop.  The cement team showed up and immediately pissed me off.  The punk kid with the tattoos pulls up with the company truck and backs it up to the back door of the donut shop effectively making his walk to the door as close as possible and simultaneously blocking off three of the four parking spaces and blocking a tenant from being able to leave.  I simply knocked on the back door of the donut  shop and stated that this was not ok and could we move the tuck into the closest parking space.  The boss man whom I was talking to never got a chance to answer because punk kid with the tattoos explodes like I just kicked his dog stomps out the door and moves the truck to the front of the property.  Ok that will work too.

Later I got a nice shot of the team and I got to thinking this Mini Storage sits behind a car wash with a small parking lot that sits behind another building and a lot of strange crap happens here.

So later we notice that this team has three people, one is the boss man, two is the punk kid with the tattoos and three is the kid that does all the work.  I hope I am wrong but every time I looked out the window  boss man and punk kid with tattoos are talking and smoking and the kid who does all the work is …well…working….and smoking.  Some things stay the same. 

Toward the end of the day Kid that does all the work was by himself cleaning up and was seconds from getting a personal visit by me, because he was washing the cement off of the tools in the middle of the parking lot.  This is going to be a crappy mess that I will end up cleaning up if I don’t say something now. 

 

Before I can get out the door the company truck pulls up and I think maybe this is the moment that the boss man will do something boss man like.  Fat chance him and punk kid with the tattoos stand next to the kid who does all the work and start to talk….and smoke. At this point I am going to go out and say something but I have to stop laughing at the stupidity of this all. Out of nowhere this older gentleman comes up with a hard bristle push broom and starts cleaning the parking spaces the cement guys never notice and continue to stand in the way. With the fact that two people are standing in his way and a third person goes and finds more stuff to clean cement off of. This guy actually does a real good job making the parking lot look good.  I may have just seen the owner of the donut shop for the first time.

Some times I wash I could afford a full time photographer to follow me around because when the moments happen that would make the best photos I am usually staring in disbelief at what I am seeing.