Posts
I hate sales on so many levels. I hate that my income is dependent on other people. I hate knocking on peoples' doors and dealing with their barking, growling, jumping dogs. I hate putting megamiles on my truck (which just went over 36K miles and is now officially out of warranty). And I hate assholes. Today I met the meanest person yet in all my nine months of working for Air Photo.
Yesterday I went to a house. Nice enough house. Nothing spectacular. The usual McMansion. The wife answered the door. Real nice lady. Thought the picture cost too much but liked it. Wouldn't make a decision without her husband seeing it. So she told me that I could catch him home when I see the horse trailer in the driveway.
So today I drive past and there's the horse trailer in the driveway just like she said. So I go up to the door....ring the bell....no answer....knock.....no answer. So I give up. I go back to the car and just as I'm about to leave a man pulls into the driveway. I step out of my truck (which is parked in the street) and ask him if he is the homeowner. No, he says, but he's sure that someone is home. So he tells me to follow him to the door and he doesn't get anyone either. Nice enough guy. We chitchat. He admires the picture. He makes a quick phone call and a minute later the man's son comes around the side of the house. I show him the picture and both men agree that it's very nice.
So far so good.
The son takes the picture to the back door of the house to show it to his dad (the real homeowner) and I wait outside next to the garage.
After about a minute or two I hear a THWACK and I turn around to see a man striding toward me with a very menacing look on his face. As I start to walk toward him, he starts yelling at me telling me to get out, take my picture with me and never come back. He accuses me of trying to rip him off because he can get the same thing off Google Earth (--not even close--) and he wanted to know why I was there when his wife told me to leave (--a lie--). I started to tell him that his wife had told me to come back but he wouldn't let me finish. He kept telling me to get the hell away from his house so I told him as nicely as I could that I couldn't leave without the picture. He gestured to my truck and that's when I figured out that the thwack that I'd heard was him slamming the picture on the roof of my truck. As I walked back to my truck, he kept telling me to get the hell out and to never come back again (--like it was my mission in life--).
Amazingly enough, the curtain rods were still holding the picture together. As hard as he'd slammed it on the roof, I'm surprised they didn't come flying out letting the whole thing fall apart. The frame didn't appear to be damaged so that was good. It didn't seem to have hurt my truck either since he'd slammed it onto the glass of the moon roof.
Well, that was pretty frightening and it shook me up pretty badly. But I managed to maintain my composure and calmly sat in front of his house until I was done with my paperwork and done framing up the next picture. THEN I drove off.
This man beats the one in Texas (who cursed me out at his door) in the hostility department.
Alan said I should go online and put this man's address on every thing that will generate junk mail so his mailbox gets stuffed with it every day. David took it one step further and said I should go to a porn site and sign him up to receive gay sex video catalogs.
That cheered me up a little.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Leaf Blowers
Who the hell invented leaf blowers????? I need to murderize the bum.
I hate those damn things. They are the noisiest pieces of machinery for their size that I have ever seen. What happened to good old fashioned rakes??
These days I'm staying in a campground that in the summer time would be very shady. But this time of year, the leaves are falling in bunches and the ground is a foot deep in leaves. There is a guy who works here at the campground who spends HOURS blowing the leaves off the roads. This dude fires that joker up at 7:00 in the morning. Then it's the constant drone of that stupid thing until he either stops for food or a piss. After his break, he starts in again. So much for peace and quiet.
And the neighborhoods!!! Everybody and their brother hires landscapers to keep their lawns in pristine shape and those dudes each have their own machine. They're like the front line of an attack force. I bet they engrave their names on the damn things. It's hell trying to talk to a customer when you're struggling to hear each other over the din of those devil machines. I just want to walk over there and stick the business end right up their asses.
Other from that, things suck. Sales here in Birmingham suck. Alan's job sucks. The cold weather sucks. I miss my house and my friends and my old job at DelState so that sucks too.
On the positive side, Mom has started her chemo and it seems to be helping her. She has more energy and she says some of the spots on her skin are clearing up. Alan has finally finished his training and is now ready for the six months of team driving. He hates truck driving but the money definitely helps.
My grandson turned 2 on November 10th. Rusty turned 7 on October 9th and my sister turned 46 on November 19th.
I hate those damn things. They are the noisiest pieces of machinery for their size that I have ever seen. What happened to good old fashioned rakes??
These days I'm staying in a campground that in the summer time would be very shady. But this time of year, the leaves are falling in bunches and the ground is a foot deep in leaves. There is a guy who works here at the campground who spends HOURS blowing the leaves off the roads. This dude fires that joker up at 7:00 in the morning. Then it's the constant drone of that stupid thing until he either stops for food or a piss. After his break, he starts in again. So much for peace and quiet.
And the neighborhoods!!! Everybody and their brother hires landscapers to keep their lawns in pristine shape and those dudes each have their own machine. They're like the front line of an attack force. I bet they engrave their names on the damn things. It's hell trying to talk to a customer when you're struggling to hear each other over the din of those devil machines. I just want to walk over there and stick the business end right up their asses.
Other from that, things suck. Sales here in Birmingham suck. Alan's job sucks. The cold weather sucks. I miss my house and my friends and my old job at DelState so that sucks too.
On the positive side, Mom has started her chemo and it seems to be helping her. She has more energy and she says some of the spots on her skin are clearing up. Alan has finally finished his training and is now ready for the six months of team driving. He hates truck driving but the money definitely helps.
My grandson turned 2 on November 10th. Rusty turned 7 on October 9th and my sister turned 46 on November 19th.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Illinois to Alabama
It has been a tough three weeks. First of all, the film in Illinois sucked. They did an overshoot which means the area they shot had already been done as recently as three years ago so I didn't sell very many pictures. And the ones I did sell were for the minimum amount I could take. So I wasn't too happy about that.
Then my Aunt Elsie died on the 14th. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June and it didn't take very long. She started really going downhill in August and when her kidneys shut down the first of October, she totally gave up and that was the end of that. So my mom lost her main morale support that Elsie gave her in dealing with her own skin cancer and lymphoma.
Air Photo gave me the Birmingham area to work and I cut my stay in Illinois short to go to Elsie's funeral. I took four days off to be with Mom and then left to set up camp in my new digs. The campground is nice enough and I have a huge site which is a refreshing change of pace after putting up with a site so tiny in Illinois that I couldn't even extend my awning and the living room slide covered up the sewer connection.
I worked for two days (Sunday and Monday) then made the long trip up to Memphis early Tuesday morning for Alan's green card interview. The dude who had our case was a total dickhead. He had absolutely NO sense of humor and couldn't be bothered to make any small talk. He would read the file, ask us some questions and then study the file again without any feedback whatsoever. The prolonged silences seemed so awkward. I had a devil of a time trying to explain to him our lifestyle and he just wasn't getting it. Plus he had a tendency to only listen to half your answer and then he shut you down not wanting to hear any further explanation. So I have to admit that it didn't take long for me to get an attitude toward the whole thing because in my mind there was no reason to be so rude and curt as he was. He had to go check with his supervisor four times with questions about the documents we had and ultimately he said it would be up to his supervisor if they would even make a decision on our case as he thought it should be transferred to Delaware since that is the state I claim as my residence. Even though I told him it would create a great hardship on me to make a trip to Delaware for the interview, he didn't appear to care. He said they wouldn't get any credit for deciding our case in Memphis (whatever that meant). So at this point, the Homeland Security people are not at the top of my favorite government entities list.
I stayed with Mom Tuesday night and went with her to the doctor Wednesday morning. That deal, too, was an exercise in frustration. We waited four hours for her to see the doctor about her lymphoma and after it was all over, she still didn't have any resolution as to her treatment.
After that I headed back to Alabama where I managed to sell three pictures yesterday. Today it rained but this weekend is supposed to be nice so maybe I'll get some sales.
Then my Aunt Elsie died on the 14th. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June and it didn't take very long. She started really going downhill in August and when her kidneys shut down the first of October, she totally gave up and that was the end of that. So my mom lost her main morale support that Elsie gave her in dealing with her own skin cancer and lymphoma.
Air Photo gave me the Birmingham area to work and I cut my stay in Illinois short to go to Elsie's funeral. I took four days off to be with Mom and then left to set up camp in my new digs. The campground is nice enough and I have a huge site which is a refreshing change of pace after putting up with a site so tiny in Illinois that I couldn't even extend my awning and the living room slide covered up the sewer connection.
I worked for two days (Sunday and Monday) then made the long trip up to Memphis early Tuesday morning for Alan's green card interview. The dude who had our case was a total dickhead. He had absolutely NO sense of humor and couldn't be bothered to make any small talk. He would read the file, ask us some questions and then study the file again without any feedback whatsoever. The prolonged silences seemed so awkward. I had a devil of a time trying to explain to him our lifestyle and he just wasn't getting it. Plus he had a tendency to only listen to half your answer and then he shut you down not wanting to hear any further explanation. So I have to admit that it didn't take long for me to get an attitude toward the whole thing because in my mind there was no reason to be so rude and curt as he was. He had to go check with his supervisor four times with questions about the documents we had and ultimately he said it would be up to his supervisor if they would even make a decision on our case as he thought it should be transferred to Delaware since that is the state I claim as my residence. Even though I told him it would create a great hardship on me to make a trip to Delaware for the interview, he didn't appear to care. He said they wouldn't get any credit for deciding our case in Memphis (whatever that meant). So at this point, the Homeland Security people are not at the top of my favorite government entities list.
I stayed with Mom Tuesday night and went with her to the doctor Wednesday morning. That deal, too, was an exercise in frustration. We waited four hours for her to see the doctor about her lymphoma and after it was all over, she still didn't have any resolution as to her treatment.
After that I headed back to Alabama where I managed to sell three pictures yesterday. Today it rained but this weekend is supposed to be nice so maybe I'll get some sales.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Iowa to Illinois
Wow. How time flies. Well, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that at least one person in this household still has a job. The bad news is, the other person has issues.
Alan went through two weeks of training at Covenant and HATED it. He hates the job, he hates being away from me and he hates the lifestyle. For one thing, he got a horrible trainer who basically sat in the right seat for probably all of an hour and then said, "OK you got it," and went back to the bunk to sleep. Alan was brand new in the truck and it was baptism by fire. He drove to Kansas City and then to Houston and was doing OK. But his next trip was from Texas to California and they were doing a lot of construction work on I-40. It was dark, he was going down a hill on a curve, and he was in a construction lane with jersey barriers on both sides of him (single lane), and he was in the wrong gear. You can't downshift a truck when going down a hill because if you miss a gear you're in the shit with nothing but your brakes to hopefully slow you down. The experience was terrifying for him and after that he was a nervous wreck. He was freaking out every time he got behind the wheel and it was so bad that we made up a story about me getting injured just to get him off the truck.
He joined me in Iowa and took a couple days to get his wits about him. Then he had a go at doing my job and it sucked for him. He worked a week and only sold two pictures. After that, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to get back into the truck or else we're going bankrupt.
So now we're in Edwardsville, IL which is just up I-55 from East St. Louis. He's waiting to hear from his student coordinator to get himself matched up with another trainer. Hopefully it will be someone who will actually take the time to TRAIN him rather than just use him for a log book to get extra miles.
Other from that, there is not much news except that my mom is getting some pretty bad cancers on her skin plus she's been diagnosed with lymphoma. I'll be in Illinois for a month and after that I'll be in the Huntsville/Birmingham, Alabama area which will put me closer to her so that I can help her around the house and help take her to her doctor's appointments. The past year or so she has depended on her sister, Elsie, to be her support for morale but Elsie was diagnosed last month with pancreatic cancer and is not doing well at all. So my mom has lost that last bit of support and she's getting tired. I'm glad that I'll at least be nearby within an hour's drive if she needs anything and I'll be able to spend more time with her and help get things done around the house so she doesn't have to worry about stuff like that.
It has always bothered me that I couldn't be there for her when she needed help and although so many people in the neighborhood always say to just call them if she needs anything, I know how it feels to not want to have to ask. You hate to be a bother to folks. I'm the same way. Like mother, like daughter. It's not that we are too proud to ask, it's that we don't want to impose on people.
Tomorrow Alan and I are going to splurge and spend some money to go see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. We really can't afford it but opportunities to see historical sights don't come along every day and so we are going to take advantage of it before Alan has to go back to work.
The "boys" are doing fine. I had to shell out over $200 for Gizmo because he got another eye ulcer on the scar that he had from the last one. While he was at the vet I went ahead and got him some more meds for his allergies as he'd run out months ago and his legs were completely bald from his licking, chewing and scratching. He's been on his meds (antibiotics and steriods plus coal tar shampoo) for a little over a week now and the hair on his legs has started to grow back. I have enough steriod meds to last him for a couple months now so maybe I can keep his itchies away long enough for his coat and skin to recover. Poor baby! But now he feels lots better and so do I.
Alan went through two weeks of training at Covenant and HATED it. He hates the job, he hates being away from me and he hates the lifestyle. For one thing, he got a horrible trainer who basically sat in the right seat for probably all of an hour and then said, "OK you got it," and went back to the bunk to sleep. Alan was brand new in the truck and it was baptism by fire. He drove to Kansas City and then to Houston and was doing OK. But his next trip was from Texas to California and they were doing a lot of construction work on I-40. It was dark, he was going down a hill on a curve, and he was in a construction lane with jersey barriers on both sides of him (single lane), and he was in the wrong gear. You can't downshift a truck when going down a hill because if you miss a gear you're in the shit with nothing but your brakes to hopefully slow you down. The experience was terrifying for him and after that he was a nervous wreck. He was freaking out every time he got behind the wheel and it was so bad that we made up a story about me getting injured just to get him off the truck.
He joined me in Iowa and took a couple days to get his wits about him. Then he had a go at doing my job and it sucked for him. He worked a week and only sold two pictures. After that, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to get back into the truck or else we're going bankrupt.
So now we're in Edwardsville, IL which is just up I-55 from East St. Louis. He's waiting to hear from his student coordinator to get himself matched up with another trainer. Hopefully it will be someone who will actually take the time to TRAIN him rather than just use him for a log book to get extra miles.
Other from that, there is not much news except that my mom is getting some pretty bad cancers on her skin plus she's been diagnosed with lymphoma. I'll be in Illinois for a month and after that I'll be in the Huntsville/Birmingham, Alabama area which will put me closer to her so that I can help her around the house and help take her to her doctor's appointments. The past year or so she has depended on her sister, Elsie, to be her support for morale but Elsie was diagnosed last month with pancreatic cancer and is not doing well at all. So my mom has lost that last bit of support and she's getting tired. I'm glad that I'll at least be nearby within an hour's drive if she needs anything and I'll be able to spend more time with her and help get things done around the house so she doesn't have to worry about stuff like that.
It has always bothered me that I couldn't be there for her when she needed help and although so many people in the neighborhood always say to just call them if she needs anything, I know how it feels to not want to have to ask. You hate to be a bother to folks. I'm the same way. Like mother, like daughter. It's not that we are too proud to ask, it's that we don't want to impose on people.
Tomorrow Alan and I are going to splurge and spend some money to go see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. We really can't afford it but opportunities to see historical sights don't come along every day and so we are going to take advantage of it before Alan has to go back to work.
The "boys" are doing fine. I had to shell out over $200 for Gizmo because he got another eye ulcer on the scar that he had from the last one. While he was at the vet I went ahead and got him some more meds for his allergies as he'd run out months ago and his legs were completely bald from his licking, chewing and scratching. He's been on his meds (antibiotics and steriods plus coal tar shampoo) for a little over a week now and the hair on his legs has started to grow back. I have enough steriod meds to last him for a couple months now so maybe I can keep his itchies away long enough for his coat and skin to recover. Poor baby! But now he feels lots better and so do I.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Texas to Iowa
I've finally finished up with Texas and have moved on to Iowa. The trip up was a tad expensive and not only just fuel. I planned on taking three days to make the almost 1000-mile trip. The day I left I back tracked from Waco down to Temple to a Winnebago dealership to get some work done on the rig. We've had a hydraulic leak for months now and it really needs to get fixed. I tried to get the work done while we were in Boerne but the man didn't have the tool needed to fix the line. So I thought maybe a large dealership would have the ability to fix it. The line is leaking at the fitting so a new fitting needs to be crimped onto the end of what we thought was a jack line but turned out to be a line for the slide. Anyway, that was a wasted 60-mile run down to Temple as they couldn't do anything for me.
I left Temple around lunch time and headed up to Dallas to have a short visit with Alan. He had just finished Covenant orientation the previous day and was waiting at the hotel to be picked up by his trainer who was supposed to be there by six. I got there around 5 and we had just started to sit down to eat when his trainer showed up early. So we quickly said our goodbyes and I left right after he did.
I probably had driven almost an hour and had just gotten to the north side of Dallas when a truck in front of me lost a 55-gallon plastic trash can off the back of his truck. It bounced to the side of the road and I thought I'd get by it but a semi in the lane next to me in front went by and the draft caught it pulling it back onto the interstate. I had nowhere to go as that part of the road was elevated and I had a wall of jersey barriers on my right side. So I slowed down as fast as I could (I was in heavy traffic) and hit the can doing probably about 45. It made the awfulest racket as it got caught under the rig and I was dragging it down the road. I was thinking *please* don't let it go the rest of the way under the rig and take out a bunch of stuff with it and then hit the truck. So I'm dragging this thing about a quarter mile until I can get past the jersey barriers to pull over on the shoulder.
I get out and look and the bottom of the can is stuck between the exhaust for the generator and the front axle. I get back in and carefully back up about 10 feet (not supposed to back up with a car in tow) but all I do is drag the can backwards. Crap! It's not coming loose. So I call Alan and he immediately comes up with the idea to put the jacks down to lift up the front end. Awesome! So I leave the rig running (to keep as much air in the bags as possible) and manually lower the front jacks. Then I have a look and I can see daylight over the top of the can. Let me tell you that I was nervous as hell scootching under the front of that rig while cars and trucks were whizzing by not more than six feet from me. I'm thinking that if somebody hits the rig I'm toast. But I get the damn can out and I threw that stupid thing as far off the road as I could. Then I get back in, put the jacks up and am back on my way. I stopped to get a few hours sleep at a Flying J in Oklahoma but a truck next to me had his engine running all night so sleep was tenuous at best. I woke up at four and said the hell with it, I'll just go ahead and leave. At daylight I found a rest stop and pulled over for a couple more hours of sleep as it was much quieter.
I get to the campground in Topeka, KS on Saturday where I plan on staying for a couple days to have a visit with my son, Shane, and his family. It was good seeing Lucas. He has grown so much. He'll be two in November. He and Catherine took me out to dinner and brought me some "Cat booze" as David calls it. It had been over a month since I've had a good drink mainly because the stuff is so expensive that I haven't bought any. So that was a good visit.
I left at 10 Monday morning (Labor Day) for the last leg to Iowa. I had 350 miles to go and figured on getting there around 6 in the evening. I was almost to the Missouri/Iowa border when a car pulled along side of me honking the horn. I thought it was because I had drifted over a bit when they passed me. So I kept going. Before I'd left, I'd researched the places where I could stop for fuel. I was down to a quarter tank and approaching my first possibility for fuel so I was trying to calculate whether I should stop or not. In the end, I decided that since it was a holiday, I better stop just in case some of the stations were closed.
It was a good thing I did.
I found out why the car was honking at me. I had a flat tire on the Mariner. The truck is so light that the rig doesn't even know it's back there so I have no indication by feel that there is trouble. I had the back video camera on to keep an eye on things but I can't actually see the tires -- only the towbar, hood, and roof. When I made the turn into the pumps I glanced in my side mirror and my heart sank when I saw the flat on the front driver's side wheel.
I dreaded going back there. But it appeared that the damage was minimal. The rim looked to be fine. But the tire was shot. And it was a new tire. I'd just bought it back in April when I took the truck in for an oil change and they found a sidewall cut on the old one. Crap.
So it's Labor Day and of course everything is closed. I make a call to GMAC (my insurance) and they send a tow truck out to get the Mariner to a place that can fix the tire. When the tow truck driver gets there, he thinks he can fix it at their shop so I go with him 8 miles up the road. He has a tire and $116 later I'm back on the road. We determined that it was a bad valve stem that had caused the tire to lose air and when I got to looking at the other valve stems they all had cracks in the rubber. I had been losing air in the right front tire for about a week and after studying the valve stem I figured that was probably where it was going. So I crossed my fingers and pressed on to Iowa hoping the other tire would hold.
I arrived at 9:30, well after dark and it was a pain in the ass trying to find the campground without the Magellan (which had frozen up halfway to Kansas). But I eventually made it and Tuesday I called the nearest Mercury dealership to make an appointment to have the rest of the tires looked at. There was also a problem with the tire pressure sensor (it had a fault) so I figured it was something that didn't get hooked up when the man mounted the new tire.
Well, come Wednesday morning, I find out that the reason why I had a sensor fault was because there WAS NO sensor. It must have come off during the time I was dragging the truck with the flat. Crap! A new sensor cost me another $210 and they went ahead and replaced the other three valve stems (which WAS causing the other tire to lose air).
Several months ago I was looking at buying four more Pressure Pro sensors to put on the Mariner when I towed it. But they cost $50 each and at the time I didn't have the $200 to shell out for more sensors. But if I'd have had them on the truck, it would have saved me the extra hundred it cost me in another new tire and a factory sensor.
So that was my adventure. Hopefully my trip to Illinois next month will be a little less exciting.
I left Temple around lunch time and headed up to Dallas to have a short visit with Alan. He had just finished Covenant orientation the previous day and was waiting at the hotel to be picked up by his trainer who was supposed to be there by six. I got there around 5 and we had just started to sit down to eat when his trainer showed up early. So we quickly said our goodbyes and I left right after he did.
I probably had driven almost an hour and had just gotten to the north side of Dallas when a truck in front of me lost a 55-gallon plastic trash can off the back of his truck. It bounced to the side of the road and I thought I'd get by it but a semi in the lane next to me in front went by and the draft caught it pulling it back onto the interstate. I had nowhere to go as that part of the road was elevated and I had a wall of jersey barriers on my right side. So I slowed down as fast as I could (I was in heavy traffic) and hit the can doing probably about 45. It made the awfulest racket as it got caught under the rig and I was dragging it down the road. I was thinking *please* don't let it go the rest of the way under the rig and take out a bunch of stuff with it and then hit the truck. So I'm dragging this thing about a quarter mile until I can get past the jersey barriers to pull over on the shoulder.
I get out and look and the bottom of the can is stuck between the exhaust for the generator and the front axle. I get back in and carefully back up about 10 feet (not supposed to back up with a car in tow) but all I do is drag the can backwards. Crap! It's not coming loose. So I call Alan and he immediately comes up with the idea to put the jacks down to lift up the front end. Awesome! So I leave the rig running (to keep as much air in the bags as possible) and manually lower the front jacks. Then I have a look and I can see daylight over the top of the can. Let me tell you that I was nervous as hell scootching under the front of that rig while cars and trucks were whizzing by not more than six feet from me. I'm thinking that if somebody hits the rig I'm toast. But I get the damn can out and I threw that stupid thing as far off the road as I could. Then I get back in, put the jacks up and am back on my way. I stopped to get a few hours sleep at a Flying J in Oklahoma but a truck next to me had his engine running all night so sleep was tenuous at best. I woke up at four and said the hell with it, I'll just go ahead and leave. At daylight I found a rest stop and pulled over for a couple more hours of sleep as it was much quieter.
I get to the campground in Topeka, KS on Saturday where I plan on staying for a couple days to have a visit with my son, Shane, and his family. It was good seeing Lucas. He has grown so much. He'll be two in November. He and Catherine took me out to dinner and brought me some "Cat booze" as David calls it. It had been over a month since I've had a good drink mainly because the stuff is so expensive that I haven't bought any. So that was a good visit.
I left at 10 Monday morning (Labor Day) for the last leg to Iowa. I had 350 miles to go and figured on getting there around 6 in the evening. I was almost to the Missouri/Iowa border when a car pulled along side of me honking the horn. I thought it was because I had drifted over a bit when they passed me. So I kept going. Before I'd left, I'd researched the places where I could stop for fuel. I was down to a quarter tank and approaching my first possibility for fuel so I was trying to calculate whether I should stop or not. In the end, I decided that since it was a holiday, I better stop just in case some of the stations were closed.
It was a good thing I did.
I found out why the car was honking at me. I had a flat tire on the Mariner. The truck is so light that the rig doesn't even know it's back there so I have no indication by feel that there is trouble. I had the back video camera on to keep an eye on things but I can't actually see the tires -- only the towbar, hood, and roof. When I made the turn into the pumps I glanced in my side mirror and my heart sank when I saw the flat on the front driver's side wheel.
I dreaded going back there. But it appeared that the damage was minimal. The rim looked to be fine. But the tire was shot. And it was a new tire. I'd just bought it back in April when I took the truck in for an oil change and they found a sidewall cut on the old one. Crap.
So it's Labor Day and of course everything is closed. I make a call to GMAC (my insurance) and they send a tow truck out to get the Mariner to a place that can fix the tire. When the tow truck driver gets there, he thinks he can fix it at their shop so I go with him 8 miles up the road. He has a tire and $116 later I'm back on the road. We determined that it was a bad valve stem that had caused the tire to lose air and when I got to looking at the other valve stems they all had cracks in the rubber. I had been losing air in the right front tire for about a week and after studying the valve stem I figured that was probably where it was going. So I crossed my fingers and pressed on to Iowa hoping the other tire would hold.
I arrived at 9:30, well after dark and it was a pain in the ass trying to find the campground without the Magellan (which had frozen up halfway to Kansas). But I eventually made it and Tuesday I called the nearest Mercury dealership to make an appointment to have the rest of the tires looked at. There was also a problem with the tire pressure sensor (it had a fault) so I figured it was something that didn't get hooked up when the man mounted the new tire.
Well, come Wednesday morning, I find out that the reason why I had a sensor fault was because there WAS NO sensor. It must have come off during the time I was dragging the truck with the flat. Crap! A new sensor cost me another $210 and they went ahead and replaced the other three valve stems (which WAS causing the other tire to lose air).
Several months ago I was looking at buying four more Pressure Pro sensors to put on the Mariner when I towed it. But they cost $50 each and at the time I didn't have the $200 to shell out for more sensors. But if I'd have had them on the truck, it would have saved me the extra hundred it cost me in another new tire and a factory sensor.
So that was my adventure. Hopefully my trip to Illinois next month will be a little less exciting.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Covenant
Alan is getting to be quite the orientation expert. Which is a sad thing. He made it through 2 and a half days of orientation at Swift and they cut him loose. This time it was because he didn't have his license for at least a year. This was something I had alluded to (but not specifically spelled out) in my email to the recruiter. So that was a wasted trip to Dallas and back (twice).
When he got back to the rig, we immediately started work on finding another company. He still had the pre-hire letter from Covenant and I called the recruiter to see if they had everything they needed. They did and gave him an orientation date of the 25th. In the meantime, Alan was working other companies but none would give him a look.
By this time Alan is getting pretty dejected. He doesn't like Covenant because of their policy of making drivers team drive for six months after training. He doesn't want to share the truck with another person. Alan is quite the loner so having to put up with another person is not something he looks forward to.
However, we are in desperate straits so he is resolved to do what he must in order to get our finances straightened out.
He has totally lost every last shred of enthusiasm he might have had for this career. He said after the Arrow debacle he felt as if they had shoved a vacuum cleaner up his ass and sucked out every last bit of liking for trucking that he had. Now he is just going through the motions.
So I drove him up to Dallas on Sunday night and dropped him off at the hotel. This time he stayed at the Comfort Inn rather than the Days Inn. At least Covenant puts their drivers up in a decent hotel. They also fed him dinner every evening (at Denny's). So that was nice.
He made it all the way through orientation and was hanging around Thursday waiting for them to tell him he had a trainer. Again he is watching everybody else get their paperwork so he's waiting for the ax to fall yet again.
He was the very last person to get his trainer, a guy by the name of Mike who is from El Paso.
So he made it. Alan is now employed....at least for the next 5-6 weeks. After that, he will have to take another road test for an evaluation. If he passes that, he will get his own truck (and a teammate).
He and his trainer are currently hanging out at the Dallas terminal waiting for a load. Alan says there are a lot of drivers there so he'll probably be there all weekend. He is bored to tears.
When he got back to the rig, we immediately started work on finding another company. He still had the pre-hire letter from Covenant and I called the recruiter to see if they had everything they needed. They did and gave him an orientation date of the 25th. In the meantime, Alan was working other companies but none would give him a look.
By this time Alan is getting pretty dejected. He doesn't like Covenant because of their policy of making drivers team drive for six months after training. He doesn't want to share the truck with another person. Alan is quite the loner so having to put up with another person is not something he looks forward to.
However, we are in desperate straits so he is resolved to do what he must in order to get our finances straightened out.
He has totally lost every last shred of enthusiasm he might have had for this career. He said after the Arrow debacle he felt as if they had shoved a vacuum cleaner up his ass and sucked out every last bit of liking for trucking that he had. Now he is just going through the motions.
So I drove him up to Dallas on Sunday night and dropped him off at the hotel. This time he stayed at the Comfort Inn rather than the Days Inn. At least Covenant puts their drivers up in a decent hotel. They also fed him dinner every evening (at Denny's). So that was nice.
He made it all the way through orientation and was hanging around Thursday waiting for them to tell him he had a trainer. Again he is watching everybody else get their paperwork so he's waiting for the ax to fall yet again.
He was the very last person to get his trainer, a guy by the name of Mike who is from El Paso.
So he made it. Alan is now employed....at least for the next 5-6 weeks. After that, he will have to take another road test for an evaluation. If he passes that, he will get his own truck (and a teammate).
He and his trainer are currently hanging out at the Dallas terminal waiting for a load. Alan says there are a lot of drivers there so he'll probably be there all weekend. He is bored to tears.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Swift
Tomorrow is the big day. Alan has another chance to get with a trucking company. Swift has given him an orientation date and we leave tomorrow for Lancaster, TX which is just south of Dallas. I'm driving him up there since it is only 80 miles away from Waco and I didn't have the heart to see him endure another bus ride from hell. Supposedly he has three days of orientation and then he's supposed to go out with a trainer for six weeks. After the fiasco with Arrow, I'll believe it when I see it. The sad thing about it is after getting jerked around for so long, Alan is super cynical now and has lost his positive attitude. This job is now a chore rather than a money making opportunity. Which sucks as I've already had experience with a man who hated his job and I know how damaging to the psyche it can be. I have been trying to convince Alan to give Swift a chance and to try to not be so critical. We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Only in Texas
Some of the things that happen to me while working the 'hoods are kind of weird. Today this one man answered the door in his underwear. It was 2 in the afternoon and I had woken him up so he was pretty bleary eyed. After I made my pitch he said no thanks and then closed the door. So I go back to my truck and just as I'm about to toss his picture into the reject pile he opens the door (still in his underwear) and says he's changed his mind that he wants the picture. So I go in and while I'm putting the clips in the back, he finally goes and puts a robe on. He said he worked late last night and was still half asleep when he answered the door.
This area has a lot of ranches so some of the roads to these houses are pretty remote. One road here is called Talbert Ranch Road and it goes a couple miles into the boonies with only about three or four ranches branching off it. When the pavement ends you go another mile or so on a dirt road and you finally get to the house. By then you're hoping somebody is home so you don't have to keep coming back out here to catch them at home. But I wasn't so lucky during the week so today I had to make the trip back out there.
Just before the pavement runs out, there was a gated house that I had visited earlier in the week. Some of these gates, if you push a little black button near the actuator, the gate will open. Depends if the homeowner has it activated or not. This one happened to be so I was able to drive up to the house. I ended up having to leave a doorhanger as they wanted to think about it. (Ninety percent of the time this usually means 'No') Once I leave a 'will call' doorhanger, I don't come back until the end of the roll if I haven't heard anything from them.
Today I'm driving out to the Talbert ranch and right when I'm coming up to this gated house, I see a llama. The lady of the house has got a bucket of food trying to lure it across the cow grate of her gate. I stop because the llama is right in the middle of the road. So it walks up to me and sticks it's head in through my open window and I'm eye to eye with a llama. I'm thinking if this thing snorts on me I'm going to be pissed. The lady asks if I was coming to her house and I said, "No," that I was headed on up the road. But I could see that she needed help and the silly llama obviously was curious about me so I slowly drove in through her gate and we almost made it but the llama wouldn't go through. She had put a couple pieces of plywood across the cow grate but every time the llama stepped on the plywood he'd back off and go back into the road. The llama's name was Franklin Louie and he wasn't hers but she had him over to breed with her female llama. I tried helping her for about 15 minutes but Franklin wasn't having none of walking on the plywood no matter how good the food in the bucket was. Finally he went up into the weeds by the fence and I was able to back out and get on down the road. She had to distract him so he wouldn't follow me.
I made the sale at the Talbert ranch as they were home this time. I asked them how many acres they had and the man said 2000. He lives in the house with his mother and works the ranch by himself.
When I drove back past the gate, there was no sign of the llama. If she calls me to order their picture (which I doubt) I'll have to ask her how it all turned out.
This area has a lot of ranches so some of the roads to these houses are pretty remote. One road here is called Talbert Ranch Road and it goes a couple miles into the boonies with only about three or four ranches branching off it. When the pavement ends you go another mile or so on a dirt road and you finally get to the house. By then you're hoping somebody is home so you don't have to keep coming back out here to catch them at home. But I wasn't so lucky during the week so today I had to make the trip back out there.
Just before the pavement runs out, there was a gated house that I had visited earlier in the week. Some of these gates, if you push a little black button near the actuator, the gate will open. Depends if the homeowner has it activated or not. This one happened to be so I was able to drive up to the house. I ended up having to leave a doorhanger as they wanted to think about it. (Ninety percent of the time this usually means 'No') Once I leave a 'will call' doorhanger, I don't come back until the end of the roll if I haven't heard anything from them.
Today I'm driving out to the Talbert ranch and right when I'm coming up to this gated house, I see a llama. The lady of the house has got a bucket of food trying to lure it across the cow grate of her gate. I stop because the llama is right in the middle of the road. So it walks up to me and sticks it's head in through my open window and I'm eye to eye with a llama. I'm thinking if this thing snorts on me I'm going to be pissed. The lady asks if I was coming to her house and I said, "No," that I was headed on up the road. But I could see that she needed help and the silly llama obviously was curious about me so I slowly drove in through her gate and we almost made it but the llama wouldn't go through. She had put a couple pieces of plywood across the cow grate but every time the llama stepped on the plywood he'd back off and go back into the road. The llama's name was Franklin Louie and he wasn't hers but she had him over to breed with her female llama. I tried helping her for about 15 minutes but Franklin wasn't having none of walking on the plywood no matter how good the food in the bucket was. Finally he went up into the weeds by the fence and I was able to back out and get on down the road. She had to distract him so he wouldn't follow me.
I made the sale at the Talbert ranch as they were home this time. I asked them how many acres they had and the man said 2000. He lives in the house with his mother and works the ranch by himself.
When I drove back past the gate, there was no sign of the llama. If she calls me to order their picture (which I doubt) I'll have to ask her how it all turned out.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Arrow Trucking
For the past month, Alan and I have been all about trucking. We have determined that for our kind of lifestyle, driving a truck would be the best way to make extra money to get us out of debt. If Alan drove a truck, we don't need an extra car for him to get to work, I can still work for Air Photo, and he can arrange for a load to be delivered close to where I happen to be at the moment.
So we started out looking at Schneider because they were advertised in AARP magazine as being very retiree friendly. That was a pipe dream. Then we started calling other trucking companies that do training and ran into the same roadblocks. What it boils down to is that Alan has two strikes against him as far as getting hired by any trucking company. Number 1 is that he doesn't have the required 3 years of verifiable work history. We have gotten around this somewhat by coercing our friends to write letters stating that they knew Alan has been retired for the past 6 years. Strike 2 is that he hasn't had his US license for at least six months. Companies need this because they need to verify his driving record. They don't want to hear or see his spotless record in the UK. So those issues have been a thorn in our side for the past few weeks.
So we checked out various drivers schools. We found one (Roadmaster) that claimed they could get Alan a job after school even with the work history/driver's license issue. So we financed $6500 worth of school in San Antonio and Alan went to their 3-week course. It gets down to the next to the last day of school and he still has no pre-hire letters from any of the companies. Guess why!!! The same old thing. On the last day he manages to get a pre-hire letter from a company called Covenant. Now this company is the pits of trucking companies and maybe that's why they'll take everybody and anybody. Drivers who have various issues go to them to get a foot in the door and then they leave once they get experience. Alan will probably have to do the same thing....
...because...
we managed to get Arrow to accept him to orientation. He took the bus ride from hell last week and traveled from San Antonio to Tulsa. He stayed in a filthy hotel and went through Arrow's orientation for five days. He was treated like a non-entity and endured hours of lines where the drivers were herded around like cattle. Every day a few drivers disappeared for whatever reason (failed whiz quiz, failed physical, terrible driving, etc.). By the time Friday rolled around there were 14 guys left to fill 4 jobs. Alan thought he'd have a chance as he'd done well on all their road tests (with the exception of one of the docking tests). But during lunch they called his name to go into the office and they handed him a bus ticket to Waco (where I am now).
What a total let down that was. So he is now back at home, licking his wounded pride. Tomorrow is Monday and we are going to call a few temp agencies in the morning to see if he can get any work driving. We're also going to try Covenant again. He really doesn't want to go there because they have screwed up training (they team drive for six months) but it appears to be the only way he might get work. Besides, we now have this $6500 loan we need to start paying back in October so something has to happen by then.
And that's my update for now. I'm in Waco area for the next three weeks and after that I have a choice of Illinois, Iowa, Montana, or California. California sounds nice but the RV parks there are SUPER expensive. To give you a clue, I'm paying $250 a month for where we are now. I'd like to go to Escondido, CA for the winter but the closest park to where I'll be working is $950 a month. PLUS electric. I've checked several other parks nearby and they either don't have sites big enough for our rig or they're full. But the going rate for the mediocre parks seems to be in the $600 range which I still think is outrageous. That's a dozen pictures I'd have to sell (almost a week's work) just to pay rent.
So that's where we are now. I'll let you all know if Alan gets to Covenant or not and how it goes.
So we started out looking at Schneider because they were advertised in AARP magazine as being very retiree friendly. That was a pipe dream. Then we started calling other trucking companies that do training and ran into the same roadblocks. What it boils down to is that Alan has two strikes against him as far as getting hired by any trucking company. Number 1 is that he doesn't have the required 3 years of verifiable work history. We have gotten around this somewhat by coercing our friends to write letters stating that they knew Alan has been retired for the past 6 years. Strike 2 is that he hasn't had his US license for at least six months. Companies need this because they need to verify his driving record. They don't want to hear or see his spotless record in the UK. So those issues have been a thorn in our side for the past few weeks.
So we checked out various drivers schools. We found one (Roadmaster) that claimed they could get Alan a job after school even with the work history/driver's license issue. So we financed $6500 worth of school in San Antonio and Alan went to their 3-week course. It gets down to the next to the last day of school and he still has no pre-hire letters from any of the companies. Guess why!!! The same old thing. On the last day he manages to get a pre-hire letter from a company called Covenant. Now this company is the pits of trucking companies and maybe that's why they'll take everybody and anybody. Drivers who have various issues go to them to get a foot in the door and then they leave once they get experience. Alan will probably have to do the same thing....
...because...
we managed to get Arrow to accept him to orientation. He took the bus ride from hell last week and traveled from San Antonio to Tulsa. He stayed in a filthy hotel and went through Arrow's orientation for five days. He was treated like a non-entity and endured hours of lines where the drivers were herded around like cattle. Every day a few drivers disappeared for whatever reason (failed whiz quiz, failed physical, terrible driving, etc.). By the time Friday rolled around there were 14 guys left to fill 4 jobs. Alan thought he'd have a chance as he'd done well on all their road tests (with the exception of one of the docking tests). But during lunch they called his name to go into the office and they handed him a bus ticket to Waco (where I am now).
What a total let down that was. So he is now back at home, licking his wounded pride. Tomorrow is Monday and we are going to call a few temp agencies in the morning to see if he can get any work driving. We're also going to try Covenant again. He really doesn't want to go there because they have screwed up training (they team drive for six months) but it appears to be the only way he might get work. Besides, we now have this $6500 loan we need to start paying back in October so something has to happen by then.
And that's my update for now. I'm in Waco area for the next three weeks and after that I have a choice of Illinois, Iowa, Montana, or California. California sounds nice but the RV parks there are SUPER expensive. To give you a clue, I'm paying $250 a month for where we are now. I'd like to go to Escondido, CA for the winter but the closest park to where I'll be working is $950 a month. PLUS electric. I've checked several other parks nearby and they either don't have sites big enough for our rig or they're full. But the going rate for the mediocre parks seems to be in the $600 range which I still think is outrageous. That's a dozen pictures I'd have to sell (almost a week's work) just to pay rent.
So that's where we are now. I'll let you all know if Alan gets to Covenant or not and how it goes.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Those Pudders
Alan is away at CDL driver's school and I've been working every day. So having two friendly faces and wagging tails (well, at least ONE wagging tail) greet me when I come home warms my heart. Rusty and Gizmo have been my constant companions since they were pups. I remember bringing Rusty home and he was so cute. That tail never stopped wagging. One time I tried to hold it still and the very tip of it still wagged. I showed it to Ken and we both fell out laughing. Rusty's tail still wags and when he's excited, his whole back end wags. Gizmo never has been much of a tail wagger. Ken called him One-Look-No-Wag. But he's starting to wag his tail a little bit these days than he used to. It's more of a lazy back and forth than it is a wag but I'll take it.
The boys are six years old now. Rusty will be seven in October (Gizmo will be seven in February). They are doing OK. Rusty still has his pepper that he's had since he was a pup. I remember one time it was coming apart and my mom sewed it together for him. Whenever anyone comes to the door or whenever he's excited, he'll run and get his pepper to carry around. Gizmo likes to squeek his toys. He thinks he's so cool when he does that so I buy him toys that are easy for him to squeek.
Gizmo is my high maintenance dog. He's allergic to three kinds of grass and two kinds of mold. I've been doctoring his skin for about four years now and it's a chronic thing with him. He's learned to walk on dirt and pavement rather than the grass. It's like he knows it makes his feet itch. He'll venture onto the grass long enough to pee or poo but other from that, he sticks to the pavement and sidewalks. He barely has any hair on his legs and his head and he constantly chews and scratches and licks his legs. I've tried many, many different kinds of remedies (herbal, natural, you name it) along with natural dog food and omega-3 oil and all kinds of other stuff through the years. Nothing works as well as good old fashioned chemicals. And vets make me so mad sometimes. I could get everything I need online through 1-800PetMeds but I haven't seen a vet yet who will authorize his script for his skin meds. So I always have to shell out the loot for an office visit before they'll refill his meds. About the only thing I've found that works on his poor skin is antibiotics along with cortisone spray. It's almost like Giz has psoriasis because his skin is all flaky and itchy. But I have to be careful with how much cortisone I use because as he licks it, too much can damage his kidneys.
They both got baths this morning so Gizmo is all white and soft and fluffy. Rusty's coat is more coarse and not as soft as Gizmo's. Last month Alan pretty much shaved all their hair off since it is so hot here in Texas. But it's finally starting to grow back out. I don't mind him shaving their legs and bodies but I like for him to leave some length to their heads and tails so they'll have at least SOME personality. Last time he cut all the hair off their heads and clipped their tails short and I had a fit. The hair on their heads is finally starting to grow back out and they're starting to look like Shih Tzu again. We leave as much length as we can on Gizmo's head to cover up the bald spots. He's lost most of the hair around the back of his head between his ears but there's enough hair left on top of his head that you can't see the bald spots so much. The only thing is you can really see the scar on his head when he had a growth removed (and Ken called him Frankendog) I've found that even though the omega-3 oil doesn't help his skin itchies, it does help the hair to grow back faster on his legs. The challenge is getting him to eat stuff with the oil on it.
When Alan gets done with school and goes to work, I'm going to order some allergy meds for Gizmo. I tried the allergy shots a couple years ago and they didn't do anything for him. But they were for the mold allergy. This time I'm going to try the stuff for the grass allergy and see if that helps him. He's so good and tolerates me giving him the shots even though we both hate it.
Rusty has been relatively the healthy dog. He used to have a lot of problems with his eyes but for the last six months or so I've not had to clean out his eyes as much. Maybe those tiny hairs that irritate his eyes have stopped growing. Now his problem is his anal glands. They get plugged up which makes his butt itch and so he scoots on his butt. He doesn't do it all the time; usually only when he gets really excited like when he meets a new person. When Alan starts work and we get caught up, I'm going to look into having Rusty's anal glands removed. For now I do the anal gland expression bit before I give him a bath. I'm not very good at it but I get some results for the most part. It beats shelling out $45 for an office visit just to have his butt squeezed.
They spend their days doing what they normally do -- sleeping. Gizmo likes to lay on the dining table chairs so he can look out the windows and bark at other dogs. We are parked right by the dog park so he has plenty of entertainment. He huffs and puffs, and finally gets his bark out. He tried laying on the back of the couch by the other window a couple of times but he needs about another two inches of width to be able to lay up there comfortably. So he's not been monkey dog very much in the RV like he used to be at the house.
I used to have a laser pen and we played laser in the RV. Our Tour is long enough that they can run from the front to the back like they used to in the house. I'll never forget how Ken used to be able to just walk up to the knick-knack cabinet and put his hand up and Gizmo would start to bark and run without even seeing the laser light. Silly puppies.
We still have some of the same routines that we had back when I had the house. I still tell them that it's time to go to work and they run to the door to get their "cookie" which is a Meaty Bone -- their favorite. Every once in a while they'll crawl on top of me to get their back itchers. Gizmo doesn't have his crate anymore to dig his way to China in so he substitutes his dog bed and digs like crazy in that. Since it doesn't make as much noise as the crate used to, Rusty doesn't bark at him anymore when he does it.
Rusty still has lots of opinions. He doesn't like certain commercials on TV and will bark at the jingle songs they use. One that comes to mind right away is the Vonage commercial. He always barks when they start the hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo part.
They still howl. If Gizmo barks long enough, Rusty will start to howl and then Gizmo joins him.
Gizmo has developed a kind of aggressive response when he sees other dogs. He'll run up to them and if they shy away, he gets really aggressive and intimidating. But if they stand up to him, he backs off like "my bad." If the other dog is the aggressor, he doesn't even try and stays close to me. So it appears that he only tries to be a bully when he thinks he can get away with it. Rusty doesn't even care about other dogs. He's all about the owners and possibly getting petted. He just LOVES kids. Gizmo couldn't care less about kids.
Giz is still a pig. He's gained a pound in the last year and was up to 16 pounds the last time I had him weighed. Rusty is maintaining his petite 11 pounds that he's had for years. Rusty has also figured out to stay out of the grass. Not because it makes his paws itch but because he's figured out that there are stickers in the grass. Most of the grass here has those little yellow spiny stickers that gets between the pads of their paws and boy, these things hurt. I've put plenty of holes in my fingers getting them out so I know they must really hurt sensitive pads. I'm always watching them when we go for walks. If I see any sign of a limp or if they've gone through grass, we always stop for a paws check.
So all-in-all, the boys are fine. They're due for shots but I'm putting it off until Alan starts work. I really don't know what I'd do without them but for now they're my boys and they know everything I say when I talk to them. I can tell by the way they turn their heads and prick up their ears when they know I'm talking to them.
The boys are six years old now. Rusty will be seven in October (Gizmo will be seven in February). They are doing OK. Rusty still has his pepper that he's had since he was a pup. I remember one time it was coming apart and my mom sewed it together for him. Whenever anyone comes to the door or whenever he's excited, he'll run and get his pepper to carry around. Gizmo likes to squeek his toys. He thinks he's so cool when he does that so I buy him toys that are easy for him to squeek.
Gizmo is my high maintenance dog. He's allergic to three kinds of grass and two kinds of mold. I've been doctoring his skin for about four years now and it's a chronic thing with him. He's learned to walk on dirt and pavement rather than the grass. It's like he knows it makes his feet itch. He'll venture onto the grass long enough to pee or poo but other from that, he sticks to the pavement and sidewalks. He barely has any hair on his legs and his head and he constantly chews and scratches and licks his legs. I've tried many, many different kinds of remedies (herbal, natural, you name it) along with natural dog food and omega-3 oil and all kinds of other stuff through the years. Nothing works as well as good old fashioned chemicals. And vets make me so mad sometimes. I could get everything I need online through 1-800PetMeds but I haven't seen a vet yet who will authorize his script for his skin meds. So I always have to shell out the loot for an office visit before they'll refill his meds. About the only thing I've found that works on his poor skin is antibiotics along with cortisone spray. It's almost like Giz has psoriasis because his skin is all flaky and itchy. But I have to be careful with how much cortisone I use because as he licks it, too much can damage his kidneys.
They both got baths this morning so Gizmo is all white and soft and fluffy. Rusty's coat is more coarse and not as soft as Gizmo's. Last month Alan pretty much shaved all their hair off since it is so hot here in Texas. But it's finally starting to grow back out. I don't mind him shaving their legs and bodies but I like for him to leave some length to their heads and tails so they'll have at least SOME personality. Last time he cut all the hair off their heads and clipped their tails short and I had a fit. The hair on their heads is finally starting to grow back out and they're starting to look like Shih Tzu again. We leave as much length as we can on Gizmo's head to cover up the bald spots. He's lost most of the hair around the back of his head between his ears but there's enough hair left on top of his head that you can't see the bald spots so much. The only thing is you can really see the scar on his head when he had a growth removed (and Ken called him Frankendog) I've found that even though the omega-3 oil doesn't help his skin itchies, it does help the hair to grow back faster on his legs. The challenge is getting him to eat stuff with the oil on it.
When Alan gets done with school and goes to work, I'm going to order some allergy meds for Gizmo. I tried the allergy shots a couple years ago and they didn't do anything for him. But they were for the mold allergy. This time I'm going to try the stuff for the grass allergy and see if that helps him. He's so good and tolerates me giving him the shots even though we both hate it.
Rusty has been relatively the healthy dog. He used to have a lot of problems with his eyes but for the last six months or so I've not had to clean out his eyes as much. Maybe those tiny hairs that irritate his eyes have stopped growing. Now his problem is his anal glands. They get plugged up which makes his butt itch and so he scoots on his butt. He doesn't do it all the time; usually only when he gets really excited like when he meets a new person. When Alan starts work and we get caught up, I'm going to look into having Rusty's anal glands removed. For now I do the anal gland expression bit before I give him a bath. I'm not very good at it but I get some results for the most part. It beats shelling out $45 for an office visit just to have his butt squeezed.
They spend their days doing what they normally do -- sleeping. Gizmo likes to lay on the dining table chairs so he can look out the windows and bark at other dogs. We are parked right by the dog park so he has plenty of entertainment. He huffs and puffs, and finally gets his bark out. He tried laying on the back of the couch by the other window a couple of times but he needs about another two inches of width to be able to lay up there comfortably. So he's not been monkey dog very much in the RV like he used to be at the house.
I used to have a laser pen and we played laser in the RV. Our Tour is long enough that they can run from the front to the back like they used to in the house. I'll never forget how Ken used to be able to just walk up to the knick-knack cabinet and put his hand up and Gizmo would start to bark and run without even seeing the laser light. Silly puppies.
We still have some of the same routines that we had back when I had the house. I still tell them that it's time to go to work and they run to the door to get their "cookie" which is a Meaty Bone -- their favorite. Every once in a while they'll crawl on top of me to get their back itchers. Gizmo doesn't have his crate anymore to dig his way to China in so he substitutes his dog bed and digs like crazy in that. Since it doesn't make as much noise as the crate used to, Rusty doesn't bark at him anymore when he does it.
Rusty still has lots of opinions. He doesn't like certain commercials on TV and will bark at the jingle songs they use. One that comes to mind right away is the Vonage commercial. He always barks when they start the hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo part.
They still howl. If Gizmo barks long enough, Rusty will start to howl and then Gizmo joins him.
Gizmo has developed a kind of aggressive response when he sees other dogs. He'll run up to them and if they shy away, he gets really aggressive and intimidating. But if they stand up to him, he backs off like "my bad." If the other dog is the aggressor, he doesn't even try and stays close to me. So it appears that he only tries to be a bully when he thinks he can get away with it. Rusty doesn't even care about other dogs. He's all about the owners and possibly getting petted. He just LOVES kids. Gizmo couldn't care less about kids.
Giz is still a pig. He's gained a pound in the last year and was up to 16 pounds the last time I had him weighed. Rusty is maintaining his petite 11 pounds that he's had for years. Rusty has also figured out to stay out of the grass. Not because it makes his paws itch but because he's figured out that there are stickers in the grass. Most of the grass here has those little yellow spiny stickers that gets between the pads of their paws and boy, these things hurt. I've put plenty of holes in my fingers getting them out so I know they must really hurt sensitive pads. I'm always watching them when we go for walks. If I see any sign of a limp or if they've gone through grass, we always stop for a paws check.
So all-in-all, the boys are fine. They're due for shots but I'm putting it off until Alan starts work. I really don't know what I'd do without them but for now they're my boys and they know everything I say when I talk to them. I can tell by the way they turn their heads and prick up their ears when they know I'm talking to them.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Ax murderer
Last week I started a new roll -- like I do every week. And I'm in a nice neighborhood -- like I am every week. So I pretty much don't expect to find a crack house in an up-scale neighborhood but that's what I felt like I stumbled on to in this case. I swear, I am not making this up. I'm going from house to house working the roll. One of my houses is on a corner. Beautiful house and immaculate landscaping. Nice lady at home. Then I round the corner and my next house is a complete 180.
First impression is the grass is all gone to seed. But that sometimes happens when the homeowner is out of town for a couple weeks. There are two decorative pillars kind of "U" shaped with a gate hanging open off one of them. This gate hasn't seen any use in quite a while. There are two concrete lions resting on the bottom of the "U" in each pillar. Normally they'd be turned outward but these two have been turned to face the pillar. So that was kind of weird. You can't see the house from the road because there are too many cedar trees grown around it. So I drive up to the house and I start to get the creeps as scenes from Chainsaw Massacre flash through my mind. There are two derelict vehicles in the driveway (a car and a truck) that have been sitting there for so long the grass is grown up around them. The front end of the car is totally burnt. The garage door is hanging open and it's all full of junk. Which matches the yard. There is junk and garbage scattered all over the yard. There used to be a pile of ceramic tile stacked up beside the driveway that had gotten scattered and totally crushed into thousands of bits so that you couldn't help but run over it.
Now, some of the places I've been to have seen better days. I guess sometimes there comes a point when people's circumstances change and things start to wear out and maintenance doesn't get done. Every once in a while I'll come across a house and the first thing I think of is 'renters.' Toys scattered all over the place, etc.
But this house was different. It was just plain nasty. It was worse than nasty but I can't think of a worse adjective to describe it. There was a huge fountain in the front that had dried up leaving scum and algae all in the bottom of it. There was what used to be nice lawn furniture on what used to be nice landscaped terraces. But the furniture had all kinds of mold on it and the chairs were laying on their sides like they'd been blown over by the wind. Nobody has used that area in a long time. I carefully walked up to the door and I could see inside the house looked like a superfund site. There was a futon on the front porch that had months of mold growing on the cushion. Yuck. There was mold on the stone walls, the front door, the eaves....everything just reeked of negligence.
So I knock on the door, give it all of about 20 seconds, and am relieved when nobody answers. When I get back to the road, I study the picture to try to see why the photographer shot it. To be honest, it doesn't look that bad from the air. The lawn furniture is hidden by a grove of cedar trees. You can see the junk cars in the driveway but the rest of the house doesn't look that bad. It does look a tad shaggy in the photo but the camera just didn't pick up all the mold and bits of trash and garbage around the house. There were just enough trees so that you couldn't really tell just how neglected the yard was.
The next day I was selling a print to the man who lives in the house diagonally opposite from the other really nice house on the corner. When I asked him if he knew who lived there his first words were, "Yes, and don't go there." I told him too late, I'd already been and he told me not to go back. "Why, is it a crack house?" (I was only half joking.) He said the man there was really strange (no shit!) and that the homeowners association (of which he was president) were trying to decide what to do about him. He and his neighbor were the ones who had put out the car fire in his driveway and when they knocked on his door to tell him about it, the dude was like, well whatever. Dude thanked them, went back inside, and closed the door. He said you couldn't really see how bad the house was from the road and so they really didn't have much leverage to do anything about the guy. You can't get rid of someone just because they're a weirdo.
And it's a real shame. He said he knew the previous owners and they took a lot of pride in their landscaping. He said there were more terraces in the back of the house and that they used to be really beautiful.
I have something called a hardcard that gets sent back to Air Photo along with all the rejected prints. On it I list the status for each print, whether it was sold and for how much or whether it was rejected and the reason. For 57BUVD3-88 I put R-Ax murderer.
Note to David: This is what I was going to tell you on the phone before my train of thought derailed.
First impression is the grass is all gone to seed. But that sometimes happens when the homeowner is out of town for a couple weeks. There are two decorative pillars kind of "U" shaped with a gate hanging open off one of them. This gate hasn't seen any use in quite a while. There are two concrete lions resting on the bottom of the "U" in each pillar. Normally they'd be turned outward but these two have been turned to face the pillar. So that was kind of weird. You can't see the house from the road because there are too many cedar trees grown around it. So I drive up to the house and I start to get the creeps as scenes from Chainsaw Massacre flash through my mind. There are two derelict vehicles in the driveway (a car and a truck) that have been sitting there for so long the grass is grown up around them. The front end of the car is totally burnt. The garage door is hanging open and it's all full of junk. Which matches the yard. There is junk and garbage scattered all over the yard. There used to be a pile of ceramic tile stacked up beside the driveway that had gotten scattered and totally crushed into thousands of bits so that you couldn't help but run over it.
Now, some of the places I've been to have seen better days. I guess sometimes there comes a point when people's circumstances change and things start to wear out and maintenance doesn't get done. Every once in a while I'll come across a house and the first thing I think of is 'renters.' Toys scattered all over the place, etc.
But this house was different. It was just plain nasty. It was worse than nasty but I can't think of a worse adjective to describe it. There was a huge fountain in the front that had dried up leaving scum and algae all in the bottom of it. There was what used to be nice lawn furniture on what used to be nice landscaped terraces. But the furniture had all kinds of mold on it and the chairs were laying on their sides like they'd been blown over by the wind. Nobody has used that area in a long time. I carefully walked up to the door and I could see inside the house looked like a superfund site. There was a futon on the front porch that had months of mold growing on the cushion. Yuck. There was mold on the stone walls, the front door, the eaves....everything just reeked of negligence.
So I knock on the door, give it all of about 20 seconds, and am relieved when nobody answers. When I get back to the road, I study the picture to try to see why the photographer shot it. To be honest, it doesn't look that bad from the air. The lawn furniture is hidden by a grove of cedar trees. You can see the junk cars in the driveway but the rest of the house doesn't look that bad. It does look a tad shaggy in the photo but the camera just didn't pick up all the mold and bits of trash and garbage around the house. There were just enough trees so that you couldn't really tell just how neglected the yard was.
The next day I was selling a print to the man who lives in the house diagonally opposite from the other really nice house on the corner. When I asked him if he knew who lived there his first words were, "Yes, and don't go there." I told him too late, I'd already been and he told me not to go back. "Why, is it a crack house?" (I was only half joking.) He said the man there was really strange (no shit!) and that the homeowners association (of which he was president) were trying to decide what to do about him. He and his neighbor were the ones who had put out the car fire in his driveway and when they knocked on his door to tell him about it, the dude was like, well whatever. Dude thanked them, went back inside, and closed the door. He said you couldn't really see how bad the house was from the road and so they really didn't have much leverage to do anything about the guy. You can't get rid of someone just because they're a weirdo.
And it's a real shame. He said he knew the previous owners and they took a lot of pride in their landscaping. He said there were more terraces in the back of the house and that they used to be really beautiful.
I have something called a hardcard that gets sent back to Air Photo along with all the rejected prints. On it I list the status for each print, whether it was sold and for how much or whether it was rejected and the reason. For 57BUVD3-88 I put R-Ax murderer.
Note to David: This is what I was going to tell you on the phone before my train of thought derailed.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Like mother, like daughter?
So yesterday we're driving around doing roll clean-up and we come to this one really nice house that is (of course) gated. Only this time we see a kid riding her bike in the drive way. She has three dogs out with her. So we pull in to the gate and the dogs come running down to see who we are. Friendly sorts. This kid is probably around 12 or so. She gets off her bike and marches down the driveway to the gate where I'm waiting. As she approaches, I tell her who I am and ask her if her parents are home. She reaches down, picks up the smallest dog and tells me, "Please leave now." Then she turns around and marches back to her bike.
And that was it.
I've come to expect this kind of rudeness from some adults but she's the youngest I've seen so far to have this kind of attitude. Most kids are quite friendly and curious as to what I have in my hands. Not this one.
Alan wanted to put it into the reject pile but I'm like, no, I'm not going to get some smart-assed kid dictate how I work. I'll keep coming back until I can talk to her smart-assed parents. :-P
And that was it.
I've come to expect this kind of rudeness from some adults but she's the youngest I've seen so far to have this kind of attitude. Most kids are quite friendly and curious as to what I have in my hands. Not this one.
Alan wanted to put it into the reject pile but I'm like, no, I'm not going to get some smart-assed kid dictate how I work. I'll keep coming back until I can talk to her smart-assed parents. :-P
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Unusual turn down
Not all of the people who reject the photos are nasty. Many of them are as sweet as they can be but they just aren't interested. It gets interesting when one person wants the photo and the other doesn't. There's this one house in the 'hood' that when we first stopped, there was a crew of men painting the house. Of course, no one was home. A few days later, we checked back and the house was done (it looked nice -- kind of a weak tangerine color with white accents) but still no one home. After two more visits, I finally caught the home owners at home. The woman answered the door and checked out the photo. She really liked it but noted that the house was now a different color. I agreed and offered her a discount ($30 off) since it was an old picture. She took it in for her husband to see and after a few minutes came back apologizing because he didn't want to buy it. I'm like, hey, no problem and started to go. But then she felt she had to elaborate. She told me that she'd been married twice before and that her husband didn't want the photo because it looked too much like the houses she'd had before with her other husbands. That's why he painted their house orange so it would look nothing like the others.
Too much information!
Too much information!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Dr. Ben Dover
Today I had a man, a doctor according to the message he left on his door for the mailman. This dude was so anal I'm sure he has GOT to be a proctologist. We tried five times to catch this man at home. The fourth time his house sitter answered the door and told us to come back on Wednesday that he would be very interested in the photo. This bitch set us up. We went back this evening and dude comes out the door, "Didn't you see the No Soliciting sign on the entrance gate?" I allowed that I had but that I ignored it because I had business in the neighborhood. (my various callbacks) Then he just went off. He wanted to know who I was, who I worked for, he took down my license plate number. "This really concerns me," he said. I'm like, whatever. I apologized for bothering him and tried to make a graceful exit. But he follows me out still busting my chops. I'm guessing he probably called the cops. Like they ain't got nothing better to do than to chase down a solicitor for this guy. What an ass.
Air Photo Stories
I've been in Texas for a month now and for the most part I've decided that the people in this area are a very private bunch. EVERY one has gates so getting past them has proven to be a challenge. The responses I've gotten from the homeowners have ranged anywhere from challenges of invasion to gratefulness for being persistent. This last spent over $500 on a canvas print. But a couple have stood out.
One man flew out of his house and berated me for upsetting his dog. I had not even gotten out of the truck yet and his dog appeared to be just fine. Dude had huge bug eyes. Scary.
Another man had a beef with the helicopter and swore the pilot had flipped him off. He said the chopper had buzzed his house for days and harassed him to the point where he went out and took pictures of the chopper in order to get the pilot's license pulled. There actually was a man in the picture standing in the driveway and he said it was his son taking a picture of the chopper. So apparently SOME thing had taken place. I believe the man was definitely annoyed with the chopper hovering so long around his property but I don't believe for a second that the pilot flipped him off or that he spent days buzzing his house. Anyway, after he chewed me out for about 10 minutes, I left him a door hanger so he could vent to the people in the office and we left.
This other guy we contacted loved the picture but didn't want to commit until his wife had seen the print. We agreed to return on another day at a certain time and when we did, no one was home. It took a couple more call backs to catch the wife at home and when we finally did catch her, she looked at me like I was a Darth Vader. I explained to her who I was (since her husband obviously forgot to mention it) and when her husband came around the corner of the house she gave him a look like 'have you lost your fucking mind?????' Me, being the perceptive person that I am, made the obvious statement, "So I'm guessing you don't want the print?" "NO!" she says and then *I* get 'the look.' That's all I needed to hear. I'm out. Jeez, lady, take a chill pill.
I got my first dog bite last week. It was a Lhasa Apso. I had been to the house twice before and the homeowners weren't home. They had three dogs. Two Lhasas and a lab. I've had Lhasas before and I know they can be VERY territorial and I was bitten by one many years ago (when I was trying to groom it). These dogs were threatening but I went calmly about my business of knocking on the door. The third time at the house we caught the homeowner at home. I was invited in and waited while he showed the photo to his wife. The dogs were watchful but relatively calm. Ultimately, they decided not to buy. As I was walking back to my truck, the female Lhasa zoomed up behind me and bit me on the back of my leg. My jeans took most of the bite but she still managed to break the skin and I had a bruise there for a few days. Oh well. Not much I can do about that. I am an uninvited guest after all.
I have more but I'll post them later.
One man flew out of his house and berated me for upsetting his dog. I had not even gotten out of the truck yet and his dog appeared to be just fine. Dude had huge bug eyes. Scary.
Another man had a beef with the helicopter and swore the pilot had flipped him off. He said the chopper had buzzed his house for days and harassed him to the point where he went out and took pictures of the chopper in order to get the pilot's license pulled. There actually was a man in the picture standing in the driveway and he said it was his son taking a picture of the chopper. So apparently SOME thing had taken place. I believe the man was definitely annoyed with the chopper hovering so long around his property but I don't believe for a second that the pilot flipped him off or that he spent days buzzing his house. Anyway, after he chewed me out for about 10 minutes, I left him a door hanger so he could vent to the people in the office and we left.
This other guy we contacted loved the picture but didn't want to commit until his wife had seen the print. We agreed to return on another day at a certain time and when we did, no one was home. It took a couple more call backs to catch the wife at home and when we finally did catch her, she looked at me like I was a Darth Vader. I explained to her who I was (since her husband obviously forgot to mention it) and when her husband came around the corner of the house she gave him a look like 'have you lost your fucking mind?????' Me, being the perceptive person that I am, made the obvious statement, "So I'm guessing you don't want the print?" "NO!" she says and then *I* get 'the look.' That's all I needed to hear. I'm out. Jeez, lady, take a chill pill.
I got my first dog bite last week. It was a Lhasa Apso. I had been to the house twice before and the homeowners weren't home. They had three dogs. Two Lhasas and a lab. I've had Lhasas before and I know they can be VERY territorial and I was bitten by one many years ago (when I was trying to groom it). These dogs were threatening but I went calmly about my business of knocking on the door. The third time at the house we caught the homeowner at home. I was invited in and waited while he showed the photo to his wife. The dogs were watchful but relatively calm. Ultimately, they decided not to buy. As I was walking back to my truck, the female Lhasa zoomed up behind me and bit me on the back of my leg. My jeans took most of the bite but she still managed to break the skin and I had a bruise there for a few days. Oh well. Not much I can do about that. I am an uninvited guest after all.
I have more but I'll post them later.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
A sad month
Alan and I have been working very hard trying to make a living selling pictures. The money is good but it's either feast or famine. Some days we do really well, and some days we don't sell any. Then life has a way of rearranging your priorities.
My dad has been ill for a long time and he finally passed away on the 21st. It was an event my family has been expecting for months now but it was still difficult to deal with. I have nothing but total admiration for my mom as she nursed him, dealt with his pain and constant struggle to breathe, and then stayed right by his side during his final two weeks of life in the hospice house. And all this time she had been dealing with her own health issues as the doctors kept chopping chunks of skin from her scalp all the way down to her skull. My mom has always been a strong woman and I know that during these past few months she has been bone tired and many times felt like giving up. But she hung in there and with the help of several people in the neighborhood and my aunt and uncle, she managed to help Daddy die with as much dignity as possible considering how a disease like emphysema robs you of all your self respect.
So I took a week off from work and made the trip up to Mississippi to be with Mom during the funeral. She and Daddy had already made all the arrangements so it was just a matter of going through the motions. I had already said my goodbyes to Daddy when I was there in October. He and I had a long talk on the porch and he knew his days were numbered. He was ready to call it a day. I have to say the funeral director did a hell of a job on Daddy in that he looked better in death than he did in life. He looked like he was just sleeping.
Daddy was buried on Thursday. Lots of people came to pay their last respects and Tammie and I struggled to remember who some of them were. It had been so long since we had seen them and folks get old. Daddy's pall bearers were his brother-in-law Jerry McGath; Jerry's son-in-law, Terry Duckworth; Daddy's nephews, David and Richard Clouse; Daddy's cousin Rodney Turner (Judy and Dale's son); and Cory's dad, Bill Fritz. Judy said something at the viewing that really struck me. She simply said, "Thing are going to be different." And I knew exactly what she meant. Eighty years ago, James was born in the house that still stands (barely) at the intersection of Murphy and Fawn Grove Roads. Back then, the roads didn't even have names. When he was in his 20's, Daddy moved up north to find work. He sent money back to his folks to help them pay for the 80 acres that Daniel Clouse had bought. Then he met my mom and in 1967 they moved back to the place where he grew up. For 40 years, James and Alice Clouse have lived on that road. A couple times they moved away, but not for long. Three generations have grown up on that road and everybody knew James Clouse. He was like a cornerstone for that road living within sight of the house he was born in. Everybody liked James. And now, after 80 years on Murphy Road, he's gone. Murphy road has lost it's anchor. Things are sure going to be different.
My first husband, Rick and his wife, Virginia, came to the viewing. I was touched and so was my mom. Rick and I caught up on our lives since the last time we spoke several years ago. He arranged for me to see some of our old friends again and I had a very nice time with Chuck Redwood and Jim and Karen Brown Friday night. It was great seeing them again but it's hard to pick up a friendship where you left off and it has been too many years. You lose that commonality. Even so, I got Chuck's phone number and promised to call him the next time I was in Tupelo and we'll go have a few beers together. Then I went over to Rick and Virginia's on Sunday. Rick had gotten out some of the old photo albums and I can't believe that I don't remember some of our old friends that we used to party with. I also can't believe that he STILL has that old-ass reel-to-reel and that it STILL works and that he STILL listens to those old-ass tapes. UNbelievable. Anyway, that was a nice visit and the food was good. :)
Tuesday I dropped Tammie and Cory off at the airport in Memphis on my way back to San Antonio. It was a long drive -- 14 hours and 830 miles. Back in my younger days a trip like that would have been cake. But now? By the time I got back I was (in Alan's words) just knackered.
Well, I have a few Air Photo stories to tell but I'll save those for my next post.
James Hamilton Clouse - 1928-2008
He had a good life.
My dad has been ill for a long time and he finally passed away on the 21st. It was an event my family has been expecting for months now but it was still difficult to deal with. I have nothing but total admiration for my mom as she nursed him, dealt with his pain and constant struggle to breathe, and then stayed right by his side during his final two weeks of life in the hospice house. And all this time she had been dealing with her own health issues as the doctors kept chopping chunks of skin from her scalp all the way down to her skull. My mom has always been a strong woman and I know that during these past few months she has been bone tired and many times felt like giving up. But she hung in there and with the help of several people in the neighborhood and my aunt and uncle, she managed to help Daddy die with as much dignity as possible considering how a disease like emphysema robs you of all your self respect.
So I took a week off from work and made the trip up to Mississippi to be with Mom during the funeral. She and Daddy had already made all the arrangements so it was just a matter of going through the motions. I had already said my goodbyes to Daddy when I was there in October. He and I had a long talk on the porch and he knew his days were numbered. He was ready to call it a day. I have to say the funeral director did a hell of a job on Daddy in that he looked better in death than he did in life. He looked like he was just sleeping.
Daddy was buried on Thursday. Lots of people came to pay their last respects and Tammie and I struggled to remember who some of them were. It had been so long since we had seen them and folks get old. Daddy's pall bearers were his brother-in-law Jerry McGath; Jerry's son-in-law, Terry Duckworth; Daddy's nephews, David and Richard Clouse; Daddy's cousin Rodney Turner (Judy and Dale's son); and Cory's dad, Bill Fritz. Judy said something at the viewing that really struck me. She simply said, "Thing are going to be different." And I knew exactly what she meant. Eighty years ago, James was born in the house that still stands (barely) at the intersection of Murphy and Fawn Grove Roads. Back then, the roads didn't even have names. When he was in his 20's, Daddy moved up north to find work. He sent money back to his folks to help them pay for the 80 acres that Daniel Clouse had bought. Then he met my mom and in 1967 they moved back to the place where he grew up. For 40 years, James and Alice Clouse have lived on that road. A couple times they moved away, but not for long. Three generations have grown up on that road and everybody knew James Clouse. He was like a cornerstone for that road living within sight of the house he was born in. Everybody liked James. And now, after 80 years on Murphy Road, he's gone. Murphy road has lost it's anchor. Things are sure going to be different.
My first husband, Rick and his wife, Virginia, came to the viewing. I was touched and so was my mom. Rick and I caught up on our lives since the last time we spoke several years ago. He arranged for me to see some of our old friends again and I had a very nice time with Chuck Redwood and Jim and Karen Brown Friday night. It was great seeing them again but it's hard to pick up a friendship where you left off and it has been too many years. You lose that commonality. Even so, I got Chuck's phone number and promised to call him the next time I was in Tupelo and we'll go have a few beers together. Then I went over to Rick and Virginia's on Sunday. Rick had gotten out some of the old photo albums and I can't believe that I don't remember some of our old friends that we used to party with. I also can't believe that he STILL has that old-ass reel-to-reel and that it STILL works and that he STILL listens to those old-ass tapes. UNbelievable. Anyway, that was a nice visit and the food was good. :)
Tuesday I dropped Tammie and Cory off at the airport in Memphis on my way back to San Antonio. It was a long drive -- 14 hours and 830 miles. Back in my younger days a trip like that would have been cake. But now? By the time I got back I was (in Alan's words) just knackered.
Well, I have a few Air Photo stories to tell but I'll save those for my next post.
James Hamilton Clouse - 1928-2008
He had a good life.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Deep in the heart of Texas
Well, I finally had enough of Florida. The car sales business is in the toilet (along with the rest of the economy) and Alan and I went three weeks without work before Pierre had the nerve to tell us that he was shutting it down. He waited till the last possible minute which pissed me off because I could have been looking for other work instead of thinking that we had events coming up. I found out on a Friday so I went back to workamper.com to see what was in there. MainGate, Inc. had an ad for independent contractors so I called them to see what the deal was. I talked to Ned, one of the owners and he said they had an event in Gainesville the next weekend and invited us to come out to the track to check out the operation. They sell souvenirs at the NHRA drag races. Their IC's pull trailers behind their motorhomes from track to track and they make decent money.....
but....
after talking to the other IC's and weighing our finances against what we could clear after operating costs (fuel, insurance, possible DOT fines) I'm not sure if we could afford to work with them. Not only that, but I'm not too keen on abusing my house by pulling a 12,000 pound trailer that is 2,000 over the weight limit of our hitch.
But we went ahead and talked to all the owners and a few days later, Sean called us to let us know they definitely liked us but that they didn't have a trailer available for us at the time. So now we had a little over a week to figure out what to do and where to go.
One of the things I wanted to do was to get our house registered in Delaware so we made the trip up to Dover to take care of that. After four tries, I finally passed the brake test and I left all the paperwork with David to take care of for me. I also went down to vital records and family court to get a couple more documents that I needed for Alan's green card paperwork. We only had about three days in Dover before we had to leave to go to Houston, TX for the next NHRA race. I was gambling that a trailer might become available as the IC's were bitching about rising fuel costs to MainGate when they were at Gainesville. But MainGate gave everybody $300 Flying-J gift cards and that seemed to make them happy so nobody quit. So I worked in the NitroMall all weekend to make some money and after the race we left for San Antonio.
And now we are in a place called Spring Branch which is near Canyon Lake just north of San Antonio. We are staying in a small campground called Mermaid Cove for the month of April and we're going to give Air Photo a serious try. Jon tells me that full time workers can clear $1000 to $1500 a week if they work an area for at least a month. Alan is not too keen on selling but he is willing to give it a try. If it works out, then I'll be happy as selling pictures is a LOT easier on our house than pulling a 6-ton trailer.
Speaking of which, we weighed out rig and the truck. Our rig weighs right at 30,000 pounds give or take 500 pounds or so depending on how full the tanks are and the truck weights 3700 pounds. It was a lot lighter than I thought it was.
Other from that, I have no more news. We are awaiting Alan's travel and work papers. Once he gets those, he'll make the trip back to England to wrap up his affairs. After that, he'll wash his hands of the UK and live the American nomadic lifestyle. Once we finish up all the rolls Air Photo shot around San Antonio (around 10 or so), we'll go to the next place where they don't have anybody and work that area.
Sounds good to me. Maybe we'll go check out the Alamo sometime this month.
but....
after talking to the other IC's and weighing our finances against what we could clear after operating costs (fuel, insurance, possible DOT fines) I'm not sure if we could afford to work with them. Not only that, but I'm not too keen on abusing my house by pulling a 12,000 pound trailer that is 2,000 over the weight limit of our hitch.
But we went ahead and talked to all the owners and a few days later, Sean called us to let us know they definitely liked us but that they didn't have a trailer available for us at the time. So now we had a little over a week to figure out what to do and where to go.
One of the things I wanted to do was to get our house registered in Delaware so we made the trip up to Dover to take care of that. After four tries, I finally passed the brake test and I left all the paperwork with David to take care of for me. I also went down to vital records and family court to get a couple more documents that I needed for Alan's green card paperwork. We only had about three days in Dover before we had to leave to go to Houston, TX for the next NHRA race. I was gambling that a trailer might become available as the IC's were bitching about rising fuel costs to MainGate when they were at Gainesville. But MainGate gave everybody $300 Flying-J gift cards and that seemed to make them happy so nobody quit. So I worked in the NitroMall all weekend to make some money and after the race we left for San Antonio.
And now we are in a place called Spring Branch which is near Canyon Lake just north of San Antonio. We are staying in a small campground called Mermaid Cove for the month of April and we're going to give Air Photo a serious try. Jon tells me that full time workers can clear $1000 to $1500 a week if they work an area for at least a month. Alan is not too keen on selling but he is willing to give it a try. If it works out, then I'll be happy as selling pictures is a LOT easier on our house than pulling a 6-ton trailer.
Speaking of which, we weighed out rig and the truck. Our rig weighs right at 30,000 pounds give or take 500 pounds or so depending on how full the tanks are and the truck weights 3700 pounds. It was a lot lighter than I thought it was.
Other from that, I have no more news. We are awaiting Alan's travel and work papers. Once he gets those, he'll make the trip back to England to wrap up his affairs. After that, he'll wash his hands of the UK and live the American nomadic lifestyle. Once we finish up all the rolls Air Photo shot around San Antonio (around 10 or so), we'll go to the next place where they don't have anybody and work that area.
Sounds good to me. Maybe we'll go check out the Alamo sometime this month.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Wedding
Here's the picture everyone has been waiting for. This is Alan and I on our wedding day. It's so easy to get married in Florida. A tad expensive...but easy. Tuesday we went down to the circuit clerk's office in Tampa and applied for our marriage license. That was almost a hundred bucks. Then we had to wait three days. On the way back to north Tampa I was going over the things we had to do in the week.
Me: Ok, Wednesday we need to go get groceries. Thursday is the run down to the Harley dealership. Friday there's something...We went back on Friday, January 18th for the ceremony. It cost another $30 for one of the deputy clerks to perform the ceremony which took all of two minutes. No appointment necessary. Just walk in and get married. Almost as good as Las Vegas except for the three-day wait. Then we went right over to the immigration attorney's office which was in the building right across the street and handed him most of the paperwork he needed to get Alan's green card paperwork started.
Alan: Um....how about getting married?
Me: Oh yeah! THAT's what it was. I knew it was something.
Alan (rolling his eyes): You forgot didn't you.
Me: Hey! Give me a break! I'm in traffic here!
And that was it. You now have Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Alan Clarke.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Things that can happen in a month
You can buy a house. You can get married. I've done both. How about that! Since my last post things have been pretty hectic. Alan arrived December 16 and he's a sweetheart. We knew within days that we'd be able to spend the rest of our lives together but we waited a few more weeks just to make sure. He told me that when he came to Florida he wasn't exactly sure if he was in love with the RV lifestyle or the woman but that after a week he knew that it was the woman. So that cheered my heart.
I have to tell the story of how we bought our new rig. We started out in Sarasota at RV World "just looking." We found some possibilities but decided to drive 60 miles up to Seffner to check out Lazydays to see if they had what I was looking for, a Winnebago Adventurer, with a certain floor plan that I wanted. Neither dealership had it. So we spent 3 hours at Lazydays looking at RV after RV. Mike, our salesman, was infinitely patient. We started out looking at new and then shopped the pre-owned rigs. Several times we passed this one rig and every time we went by it Alan would say, "You know I really love that color...." But we couldn't see it because it was locked up with a Sold sign in the window. So we settled on a different Winnebago Adventurer and went back to Sarasota after filling out all the paperwork to start the deal.
The next day, Thursday, we went back to RV World and had another look at a couple of rigs they had there. One was a leftover Gulfstream and the other was a Forest River. I didn't like either one of them but Alan was adamant that he wanted a diesel pusher which both of these rigs were. I wasn't happy with the quality of them and I wanted the Winnebago from Lazydays. However, it was a gas rig and Alan didn't want gas. So we decided that whichever dealership called us first, that's the one we'd buy.
Well, Friday rolled around and I was getting impatient with Lazydays as I really wanted the 'Bago. So I called them around 1 in the afternoon and talked to Ben and asked him if they were having very much trouble getting financing. My credit score was really good but they were running into problems with the debt to income ratio. As luck would have it, RV World called us around 3 and said to come down and sign the paperwork for our new rig. We had gotten the Gulfstream.
Now, normally, when you buy a new house, you're usually excited. But I was just kind of ambivalent. I really didn't care for the floor plan but my thought was that any Class A rig was a step up from the Class C as it had more storage space and living area. Not only that, but even though it was a new Gulfstream, it was a leftover 06 and I wasn't happy about going backwards in the model year as my Outlook was an 07. But Alan was happy with a diesel pusher and if he was happy then I'd be happy.
Before we left I figured a courtesy call was in order for Lazydays. I called Ben the finance guy and told him that we'd decided to go with the deal from RV World and all he said was ok. Then I called Mike our salesman to tell him the same thing. I got his voice mail and left him a message. Then we left for RV World.
I signed all the paperwork but I wasn't happy with the interest rate of the loan. It was worse then the one I'd had on the Outlook and I made sure they knew it. After all the signing done, we were scheduled to take delivery of the new rig at 1 the next afternoon which was a Saturday. This was an ambitious delivery time as they had some work to do on the rig first like fix the door handle that was broken and replace a missing vent off the fridge and fix the entry steps that wouldn't work. But we needed to get it done because we had to be in St. Petersburg on Sunday.
At 9 the next morning I get a call from RV World. The wanted us down there ASAP because they needed to get the Outlook in the shop to do the internet antenna swap. So Alan and I raced to get the Outlook packed up and down there within the hour.
T minus 4 hours and counting.
Around 9:30, Mike calls me to find out what had happened. I told him that I never heard anything back from Ben and so I figured that he'd given up. Mike was upset that nobody ever called me back. He was off on Friday and when he got in that morning he check to see how it was going and that's when he got my message. So he grilled me on what kind of deal we had and made sure I knew what an inferior quality of coach the Gulfstream was. I agreed with him but told him that we had a deal with RV World and that I'd signed the paperwork already. He told me that as long as we hadn't taken delivery of the coach yet that the deal wasn't done yet. He told me to give him an hour and he'd call me back.
T minus 3:30.
We got down to RV World at 10 and took the Outlook back to the shop for the antenna swap. While they were starting the work, our salesman showed us around the parts department and introduced us to the service manager and a few other people. The Gulfstream was in the shop getting prepped for delivery. At 11:30, Mike called me back. We were in the middle of a conversation with our salesman and I had to skulk off so he wouldn't hear me talking to Mike. Mike asked me if he could get us the same deal on a Winnebago Tour, would we take it. I told him it had to be the same payment and it had to include the 7-year warranty. He said OK and that he'd call me back.
T minus 2:30 and counting.
We putzed around the parts store looking for a few items we needed for the new rig. Not too many things because I already had most everything I needed with the Outlook. Alan and I talked about what Lazydays was trying to do. I was convinced that they'd never pull it off. I picked out a few things and put them on the counter and waited for the man to finish with another customer. No hurry. We had to wait anyway for our delivery time. Then Mike call me back again.
"Remember that Winnebago Tour you kept looking at because you liked the color?"
I'm like, yeah.
"We got you the Tour."
"I thought it was sold???"
"It was when you were here but I checked this morning and it was back on the list."
"So you got us a deal on the Tour? And it's the same terms as this one?" My heart is starting to race.
"Yep."
I can't believe it. So I'm like, "Uh, Mike, we are supposed to take delivery of this Gulfstream in a half hour!
"By law, as long as you have not taken possession of the coach or slept in it, you do not have to go through with the deal."
"Are you sure???"
"Absolutely."
"OK, I'll call you back in 5 minutes."
T minus 40 minutes.
I grab Alan and give him the details.
"Remember that gold coach you loved the color?"
"Yes."
"That's the one they've got for us."
"!!!!!!!!"
He asks about the deal and I fill him in. I love the fact that it's a Winnebago and he loves the fact that it's a diesel pusher. We'd looked at some Tours at RV World but they were out of our price range. The one at Lazydays is an 07. At the time, I thought it was new but later I found out it was pre-owned. That's ok.
T minus 30 minutes.
ABORT! ABORT!
We hustle back to the service department to see how far they'd gone with the antenna work. So far, all they've done is to remove it from the Outlook. We made sure they had not drilled any holes in the roof of the Gulfstream and the answer was no. Great. We told them to stop right there and to give us all the parts. Then we drove the Outlook back to the front of the dealership and Alan told me that he didn't have the nerve to tell them what we planned to do. Besides, it was my name on the deal anyway. So I went inside and gathered up the two sales people that had worked on the deal and the finance girl. I told them that we'd changed our mind and that I wanted my $2000 down payment back. Of course they were upset and I apologized profusely but I was resolute. They asked me to wait for a minute so I did. I saw the sales people talking to the manager and then they called me back to his office. I told him that Lazydays had offered us the same deal on a Tour and since it was a much better quality coach that we wanted to go that route.
That's when the mind games started.
First they tried to tell me that since I'd already signed all of the paperwork, I'd have loans on two RVs. That didn't phase me. (Todd, the finance guy at Lazydays had told me this wasn't true.) I spent 20 minutes listening to them almost threaten me with legal action. Not in so many words; but close. By now, Alan had come to my aid as he saw I was getting the third degree. Then they tried to say that since they'd already done work on the Gulfstream, that we'd be responsible for that work. Alan pointed out that it was work they'd needed to do anyway and that if they bothered to check with their service department, they'd find out that no cutting had been done yet for the antennas. Then they tried the tactic that Lazydays was pulling a fast one because there's no way they could sell me a new Tour for the same price as the Gulfstream. (Remember, at the time I didn't know it was pre-owned.) Alan told them he didn't know how Lazydays had come up with the deal they had but he at least wanted to check it out. Maybe it WAS bogus. But then again, maybe not. After 15 minutes of trying to get out of there, we'd had enough. We went outside and I called Todd and asked him if there was any way RV World could sue us for anything. He said absolutely, 100% not. He said as long as we had not taken delivery, that RV World didn't have a leg to stand on. He said they were just trying everything they could to not let me leave and to keep us there so they would work on us some more. He said in all honesty, they'd probably do the same thing. That's all I needed to hear.
Then the sales manager came out with the paper that I'd signed saying that I'd already taken delivery. When I saw that, it was the last straw. I told him I'd had enough and that we were leaving. I told him I wanted my money back and that I expected to see a check within the week. I told him that if he wanted to try to make that form stand up in court, then I'd see him there. I apologized again for all the trouble they'd gone through and we got into the Outlook and pulled away.
It had taken us almost an hour to get out of there. I had never been so stressed out in my life.
When we pulled into the parking lot at Lazydays, there sat the Tour. It was beautiful. The inside was immaculate. It was then that we found out it was pre-owned and then the deal made sense. That was how they'd been able to match the one on the Gulfstream. After I found out, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. And then excitement started to kick in. Mike gave me the keys and I got to drive it. Let me tell you. Driving the Tour compared to driving the Outlook is like the difference between driving a truck and a Lexus. The air suspension in the Tour makes all the bumps go away. And the 400 hp diesel engine..... When you press the gas pedal, it just goes. When you pressed the gas pedal in the Outlook, it had to think about it for a while. And towing the Mariner??? The Tour doesn't even know it's back there. In the Outlook, I felt like I was dragging a boat anchor. Even though the Tour is longer than the Outlook (by 10 feet), there is way less angst driving on the interstates because the Tour is actually 2 feet narrower than the Outlook. So when the big semi's pass me, I have a bit less width to me and thus more clearance on the side. That extra two feet makes a big difference. Jersey barriers aren't as scary anymore.
Well, we didn't get to take it home that day. Or the next. Or the next. Christmas week just really jammed us up. We took delivery on the 28th. Remember the catch? It was there. When we'd left RV World and drove up to Lazydays, we found out that Lazydays has gambled that they'd be able to get me financed. So when I test drove the Tour, they still had not gotten the financing yet. But, hey, it got done AND I ended up with a lot better rate than the one I had with the Outlook. AND it was with Wachovia bank who I banked with anyway.
So everything worked out in the end. I put a picture of our new house at the bottom of the page. Alan took it when I was driving out of Lazydays. Got the Mariner all hooked up and everything. It looks so small back there.
Guess I'll have to tell my folks I'll have to buy a new plug for electric at their house. Gotta get a 50 amp RV plug to hook up that other wire under the house. :)
So that's the story of the Tour.
Next installment will be the wedding.
I have to tell the story of how we bought our new rig. We started out in Sarasota at RV World "just looking." We found some possibilities but decided to drive 60 miles up to Seffner to check out Lazydays to see if they had what I was looking for, a Winnebago Adventurer, with a certain floor plan that I wanted. Neither dealership had it. So we spent 3 hours at Lazydays looking at RV after RV. Mike, our salesman, was infinitely patient. We started out looking at new and then shopped the pre-owned rigs. Several times we passed this one rig and every time we went by it Alan would say, "You know I really love that color...." But we couldn't see it because it was locked up with a Sold sign in the window. So we settled on a different Winnebago Adventurer and went back to Sarasota after filling out all the paperwork to start the deal.
The next day, Thursday, we went back to RV World and had another look at a couple of rigs they had there. One was a leftover Gulfstream and the other was a Forest River. I didn't like either one of them but Alan was adamant that he wanted a diesel pusher which both of these rigs were. I wasn't happy with the quality of them and I wanted the Winnebago from Lazydays. However, it was a gas rig and Alan didn't want gas. So we decided that whichever dealership called us first, that's the one we'd buy.
Well, Friday rolled around and I was getting impatient with Lazydays as I really wanted the 'Bago. So I called them around 1 in the afternoon and talked to Ben and asked him if they were having very much trouble getting financing. My credit score was really good but they were running into problems with the debt to income ratio. As luck would have it, RV World called us around 3 and said to come down and sign the paperwork for our new rig. We had gotten the Gulfstream.
Now, normally, when you buy a new house, you're usually excited. But I was just kind of ambivalent. I really didn't care for the floor plan but my thought was that any Class A rig was a step up from the Class C as it had more storage space and living area. Not only that, but even though it was a new Gulfstream, it was a leftover 06 and I wasn't happy about going backwards in the model year as my Outlook was an 07. But Alan was happy with a diesel pusher and if he was happy then I'd be happy.
Before we left I figured a courtesy call was in order for Lazydays. I called Ben the finance guy and told him that we'd decided to go with the deal from RV World and all he said was ok. Then I called Mike our salesman to tell him the same thing. I got his voice mail and left him a message. Then we left for RV World.
I signed all the paperwork but I wasn't happy with the interest rate of the loan. It was worse then the one I'd had on the Outlook and I made sure they knew it. After all the signing done, we were scheduled to take delivery of the new rig at 1 the next afternoon which was a Saturday. This was an ambitious delivery time as they had some work to do on the rig first like fix the door handle that was broken and replace a missing vent off the fridge and fix the entry steps that wouldn't work. But we needed to get it done because we had to be in St. Petersburg on Sunday.
At 9 the next morning I get a call from RV World. The wanted us down there ASAP because they needed to get the Outlook in the shop to do the internet antenna swap. So Alan and I raced to get the Outlook packed up and down there within the hour.
T minus 4 hours and counting.
Around 9:30, Mike calls me to find out what had happened. I told him that I never heard anything back from Ben and so I figured that he'd given up. Mike was upset that nobody ever called me back. He was off on Friday and when he got in that morning he check to see how it was going and that's when he got my message. So he grilled me on what kind of deal we had and made sure I knew what an inferior quality of coach the Gulfstream was. I agreed with him but told him that we had a deal with RV World and that I'd signed the paperwork already. He told me that as long as we hadn't taken delivery of the coach yet that the deal wasn't done yet. He told me to give him an hour and he'd call me back.
T minus 3:30.
We got down to RV World at 10 and took the Outlook back to the shop for the antenna swap. While they were starting the work, our salesman showed us around the parts department and introduced us to the service manager and a few other people. The Gulfstream was in the shop getting prepped for delivery. At 11:30, Mike called me back. We were in the middle of a conversation with our salesman and I had to skulk off so he wouldn't hear me talking to Mike. Mike asked me if he could get us the same deal on a Winnebago Tour, would we take it. I told him it had to be the same payment and it had to include the 7-year warranty. He said OK and that he'd call me back.
T minus 2:30 and counting.
We putzed around the parts store looking for a few items we needed for the new rig. Not too many things because I already had most everything I needed with the Outlook. Alan and I talked about what Lazydays was trying to do. I was convinced that they'd never pull it off. I picked out a few things and put them on the counter and waited for the man to finish with another customer. No hurry. We had to wait anyway for our delivery time. Then Mike call me back again.
"Remember that Winnebago Tour you kept looking at because you liked the color?"
I'm like, yeah.
"We got you the Tour."
"I thought it was sold???"
"It was when you were here but I checked this morning and it was back on the list."
"So you got us a deal on the Tour? And it's the same terms as this one?" My heart is starting to race.
"Yep."
I can't believe it. So I'm like, "Uh, Mike, we are supposed to take delivery of this Gulfstream in a half hour!
"By law, as long as you have not taken possession of the coach or slept in it, you do not have to go through with the deal."
"Are you sure???"
"Absolutely."
"OK, I'll call you back in 5 minutes."
T minus 40 minutes.
I grab Alan and give him the details.
"Remember that gold coach you loved the color?"
"Yes."
"That's the one they've got for us."
"!!!!!!!!"
He asks about the deal and I fill him in. I love the fact that it's a Winnebago and he loves the fact that it's a diesel pusher. We'd looked at some Tours at RV World but they were out of our price range. The one at Lazydays is an 07. At the time, I thought it was new but later I found out it was pre-owned. That's ok.
T minus 30 minutes.
ABORT! ABORT!
We hustle back to the service department to see how far they'd gone with the antenna work. So far, all they've done is to remove it from the Outlook. We made sure they had not drilled any holes in the roof of the Gulfstream and the answer was no. Great. We told them to stop right there and to give us all the parts. Then we drove the Outlook back to the front of the dealership and Alan told me that he didn't have the nerve to tell them what we planned to do. Besides, it was my name on the deal anyway. So I went inside and gathered up the two sales people that had worked on the deal and the finance girl. I told them that we'd changed our mind and that I wanted my $2000 down payment back. Of course they were upset and I apologized profusely but I was resolute. They asked me to wait for a minute so I did. I saw the sales people talking to the manager and then they called me back to his office. I told him that Lazydays had offered us the same deal on a Tour and since it was a much better quality coach that we wanted to go that route.
That's when the mind games started.
First they tried to tell me that since I'd already signed all of the paperwork, I'd have loans on two RVs. That didn't phase me. (Todd, the finance guy at Lazydays had told me this wasn't true.) I spent 20 minutes listening to them almost threaten me with legal action. Not in so many words; but close. By now, Alan had come to my aid as he saw I was getting the third degree. Then they tried to say that since they'd already done work on the Gulfstream, that we'd be responsible for that work. Alan pointed out that it was work they'd needed to do anyway and that if they bothered to check with their service department, they'd find out that no cutting had been done yet for the antennas. Then they tried the tactic that Lazydays was pulling a fast one because there's no way they could sell me a new Tour for the same price as the Gulfstream. (Remember, at the time I didn't know it was pre-owned.) Alan told them he didn't know how Lazydays had come up with the deal they had but he at least wanted to check it out. Maybe it WAS bogus. But then again, maybe not. After 15 minutes of trying to get out of there, we'd had enough. We went outside and I called Todd and asked him if there was any way RV World could sue us for anything. He said absolutely, 100% not. He said as long as we had not taken delivery, that RV World didn't have a leg to stand on. He said they were just trying everything they could to not let me leave and to keep us there so they would work on us some more. He said in all honesty, they'd probably do the same thing. That's all I needed to hear.
Then the sales manager came out with the paper that I'd signed saying that I'd already taken delivery. When I saw that, it was the last straw. I told him I'd had enough and that we were leaving. I told him I wanted my money back and that I expected to see a check within the week. I told him that if he wanted to try to make that form stand up in court, then I'd see him there. I apologized again for all the trouble they'd gone through and we got into the Outlook and pulled away.
It had taken us almost an hour to get out of there. I had never been so stressed out in my life.
When we pulled into the parking lot at Lazydays, there sat the Tour. It was beautiful. The inside was immaculate. It was then that we found out it was pre-owned and then the deal made sense. That was how they'd been able to match the one on the Gulfstream. After I found out, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. And then excitement started to kick in. Mike gave me the keys and I got to drive it. Let me tell you. Driving the Tour compared to driving the Outlook is like the difference between driving a truck and a Lexus. The air suspension in the Tour makes all the bumps go away. And the 400 hp diesel engine..... When you press the gas pedal, it just goes. When you pressed the gas pedal in the Outlook, it had to think about it for a while. And towing the Mariner??? The Tour doesn't even know it's back there. In the Outlook, I felt like I was dragging a boat anchor. Even though the Tour is longer than the Outlook (by 10 feet), there is way less angst driving on the interstates because the Tour is actually 2 feet narrower than the Outlook. So when the big semi's pass me, I have a bit less width to me and thus more clearance on the side. That extra two feet makes a big difference. Jersey barriers aren't as scary anymore.
Well, we didn't get to take it home that day. Or the next. Or the next. Christmas week just really jammed us up. We took delivery on the 28th. Remember the catch? It was there. When we'd left RV World and drove up to Lazydays, we found out that Lazydays has gambled that they'd be able to get me financed. So when I test drove the Tour, they still had not gotten the financing yet. But, hey, it got done AND I ended up with a lot better rate than the one I had with the Outlook. AND it was with Wachovia bank who I banked with anyway.
So everything worked out in the end. I put a picture of our new house at the bottom of the page. Alan took it when I was driving out of Lazydays. Got the Mariner all hooked up and everything. It looks so small back there.
Guess I'll have to tell my folks I'll have to buy a new plug for electric at their house. Gotta get a 50 amp RV plug to hook up that other wire under the house. :)
So that's the story of the Tour.
Next installment will be the wedding.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
