On your mark, Get set, Go!!!

Life is funny!  Sometimes it is ha, ha funny like “Three men walk into a bar…don’t you think the third one would have ducked?”  Then there is the odd funny that makes you think. Well today is that odd kind of funny. 

I have been working this week with John Miller Homes.  This is what I was doing before I got the Job with Mid-States. Life as a painter is not that bad at all. I have been taken under the wing by Lonnie, a long time painter. He has been showing me the ropes and making this time a lot of fun.

Todays lesson is that rain is no good for paining.

 I plan on helping out with the painting until…..wait for it …. LRDezine takes off. 

 

 

 

Now you may ask, what is LRDezine? I would say that is a very good question.  LRdezine is Linda and Robert Design, our new company that we started today.  First, we will be offering organization help for the person who has lost the time to organize. Second, we will create systems for companies who need to organize anything from their inventory to their daily paperwork. Third, consultation for anyone who wants to get started organizing but does not know where to start.

Why is this an odd funny thing? Last week prayed that I can’t wait to look back and see the path that God has lead us through to get where He wants us. Today I see part of that path. Yes that is cool but it also just makes me stop and re-mind myself, God listens and he answers. All I got to say is “Wow”!

Coming soon our web page and business cards (in the works now) and a face book page (to be started soon). I you are local come by and join us next Friday for the Yukon Chamber of Commerce coffee.  It will be on the 21^st at the Dale Robinson Center at 8am.  

 

 

Added Note: Last night was Brandon N's Eagle Court of Honor. 

 

So, I volunteered to cook. Unfortunately that meant I had to miss the Court of Honor and sit with my fire while the cobblers baked.

As I was finishing up The Scout Master, Chuck comes out and says I need to get into the church. When I arrived in the sanctuary Brandon awarded me a mentor pin. The Silly punk made me cry. Like I said he is a good kid.

 

 

The Gloves Are Off

Warehouse 13 is precisely NOT where I used to work. (Note the phrase “Use to work”) What a nice group of people who are getting the crap kicked out of them. 

 

 Mid—States seemed like a really nice place with some decent people who worked there, but Mid—States was not a company all on its own.  They are a subsidiary of a larger company called Ches  a peak.  (and yes there is a reason to not type their name correctly).  The first reason is they are very protective of their name and second they have some really big jerks working the mid management team.  I never thought a company that big could get there making dumb decisions.  Most likely there has been a turnover in some level of management. I say this because a lot of the decisions being sent down are every modern shortsighted and money hungry.  The best model for business, in my opinion, is to build customer loyalty with great products and great customer service. To treat your customers with contempt and to belittle your employees and think that is the way to motivate and increase sales is insane. Since I do not want to be associated with this kind of business model, I left. 

With that rant done, let’s get on with the real world. 

We have moved again! The house we were living in was sold and we needed to find a new place.  So in one weekend we packed everything we had out of storage packe it into the car and van and moved while volunteering at the Iron Thistle Fair.

Scouts are helpful

Having your belongings in your cart,even for one weekend is kind of scarry.

 

 

 

 

 

Now we are back in the outskirts of Yukon staying with Scout Master Chuck and family.  It is a very nice place and very comfortable. Oh did I mention it just went up on the market.  Yeah it seems like we will just keep jumping house to house helping people sell their homes.

 

 The latest project to help the sale along was fixing a window sill, while the tornado sirens were going off. I know God has a plan and I trust that it is good and beneficial. It will be fun to look back on this time of our life and map out the road that God has us on. To understand why we were in certain places at certain times and to see how God worked through our situation. 

So what are we doing instead of working? Well looking for work is a top concern, but there is so much more.  Bobby and Jordie got married at the Myriad Gardens.

 

 The wedding was wonderful and they took off a week later for a honeymoon in So. California.  Linda and I have been helping Chuck prep the house for sale.

 

 

 

 

 Joshua and Steven went off to his Ordeal for the Order of the Arrow. 

Troop 300 celebrated a new Eagle Scout.

 

  I got to put a team together to go receive a Cub Scout who bridged into Boy Scouts.

 

 Karate, Church, Family time and Sleep round out the rest of the time.

Oh and just for fun we picked up the newlyweds from the airport in a hail storm. 

 

We had to make a few pit stops to avoid the bigger Hail. (I don't eat McDonalds and we didn't need gas, but the cover kept the hail off the car).

Life is not setteled yet, but it is interesting.

Change is in the air

There is a time for a change and that time is now.  First Change will be the name of this blog.  I am leaning toward “The Life of Bob” and that will be the working title, but if you have an idea I will be open.  

Now for the rest of the story.

Two weeks ago (that would be 3/18/13) the day before my 50^th birthday, Storage Management Associates, the management company my old boss hired at the first of the year sent an area manager to Yukon Oklahoma to relieve Linda and myself from our servitude to the company. In other words we got fired. Ok not really a big deal I didn’t trust SMA anyway. Now I will let you know I do not hold any real grudge with SMA I could tell from the beginning it was never going to work.  The style of business that they do and what I have been so successful with are diametrically opposed.  So in the big scheme of things it was not a big surprise. 

Now on that day they fired us they also gave us 7 days to move out, and that did give Linda and I a fairly blue night.  Remember Tuesday is my Birthday and on my birthday for the past 6 years I have baked cookies and given them away last year I did 21 dozen.  This year I really wanted to make 50 dozen so Linda jumped in and started baking. Hey job or no job my 50^th birthday only comes once. That is when we got the call from a real close friend in California that her husband had passed away.  No matter how bad your problems seem there are always people whose problems are worse.  Anyway God is the one who is ultimately in control and he will lead us where he wants.

Tuesday happens and since Linda and I no longer have Jobs we could spend the whole day handing out Bob day cookies. The actual name of my Birthday is “Unofficial International Bob Day” I have networked this day with friends of mine to reach people on six continents.  It is crazy to think on March 19^th people all over the world are making and giving away cookies just to bring a smile.

 

 

Armed with 50 dozen cookies in 100 Red solo cups Linda and I gave cookies away from the north side of Oklahoma City through Yukon and ended up in El Reno.  We spread as much joy as possible and promoted the Military Prayer Group of Yukon an organization that prays for our men and women who serve our armed forces.  Bob Day ended very well.

 

Wednesday we woke up and started packing like crazy.  With the help of our friends lead by the unstoppable Joyce Roper

 

 

 we moved our 300 Square foot storage and our 200 square foot shop to 5 Star Storage owned buy one very honest and honorable man Rick Opitz.

 

Thursday I put my wife on an airplane to California to be with her best friend at the funeral of her husband.   Joyce and Samantha Matthews continued to move wood and boxes from Guardian to Five Star and Started packing up the house.

 

Friday we had more help come in and continue packing the house up. Once again Joyce led the charge and kept me focused.  Without my wife I can get bogged down in the little things it is nice to have someone step in and help.

 

 Saturday night Danielle and her son Gavin came by and packed like crazy. It was the final touch that made me feel ready for the morning.

Saturday was the big move our son Bobby brought the Red Neck army over to help.

 

My dad stopped by and lent a hand packing cleaning and moving.  My body had taken as much abuse as it could stand and it was nice to have the help. Saturday also brought the rain. So it looked like it was going to be a soggy move but Pastor Ron Rasmussen from Christ Church of Yukon brought a line of pickup trucks and we had the house cleared in no time. At one point it felt like we had so much help that I could easily lose control. God is so good he blessed us with an overflowing cup.

Monday I did some cleanup work in storage and ran errands around town. Then spent a long night at scouts explaining what just happened to Linda and me.

Tuesday I started work with John Miller doing some work on a home he was refurbishing. I also received a call from a company to come in for an interview.  Then I spent a long night at Joshua’s Karate class explaining what happened to Linda and me.

Wednesday I came in late to work on the house because of the Job interview.  Then I received a call that afternoon offering me the job.

Thursday I never made it to the house due to the fact it took most of the day to fill out employment paperwork and take a drug test. I then had the great pleasure of picking up my wife from the airport.

Friday I spent the day working for John and the evening with my family.

All that to bring us to today, we are staying with friends, my new jobs starts Monday,  we are blessed with more friends than you can imagine, tomorrow is Easter and God is good… all the time.

The Smell Is Oh So Special

Now I have been having so much fun with the car wash for the past two months.  The sumps have all started backing up, at first it was one at a time then the whole thing started acting up.  In fact, in the month of December I have cleared clogs five times.

Now I have explained how much I enjoy working on the sumps with the smell, the slime, the smell, and the smell. In fact last Sunday I had the extra fun of teaching Andrew how to clear a clog.  What bothered me on Sunday was the fact that that it was the second time for the Auto bay to clog up in three days. Things were going from bad to worse for the drainage system.  That Monday I called American Sanitation and tried to set an appointment to get the sumps clean.  The answer was “Well maybe, we can get there by Thursday!” I heard myself saying “That’s cool we get it done when we can” While my brain was exploding in my skull and leaking out my ears. Luckily we did not Back up in any of the stalls for the rest of the week.  We did not get the cleanout done till Friday, but boy did those guys earn their pay.  Two guys show up early Friday morning with a large empty Tanker and started cleaning out the manual bays

 

These guys worked through the wind, the temperature, and the smell. I never realized just how much crap comes off cars, trucks, and whatever else that fits into a wash bay.

 

Once a bay was clean they opened it up to the customers and moved on to the next, at least for the first four bays.  That’s when they realized that our bays were so full that their tanker truck would not hold all the crap.  They had to leave and dump their tank and come back for the last three bays. 

 

The last surprise was when they started working on the main sump.  We found that there was a major clog somewhere in a two foot section of pipe that was deeper in the crap soup than anyone could or wanted to try to reach. (That included me).  This is when the manager came up with the idea of building up some pressure in the tanker then hit that clog with all that pressure at once. This sucked the clog out faster than anything.  Think of a giant plunger and you might get an idea of the sound that clog made coming out.  Now what was in that clog?  well no one will ever know.  I like to think it was something dead.

 

All and all it was well worth all the trouble to get the car wash back up and running.