Friday, February 10, 2023

 I'm going crazy with this electrical stuff. Lowe's twice today, was going to go a third time after taking pics and looking at an existing setup elsewhere.  When....the dude finally calls. He's had a bad day. Actually a bad week. He said he had dropped his trailer and where am I? I had already informed him I was going to be a bit behind him. He was in a bad mood. The slide out he paid a grand to fix? Wasn't working. He needed to leave right now and I said fine,  we can settle up later - but - I'm only maybe 7 minutes away.

He insisted on leaving and I said fine, we can meet up Monday- I think he was needing to go to work like right now.  If he doesn't pay when he says he will? He can leave. I doubt he wouldn't pay.  It all changed to meeting me at the highway. He got out of the truck, walked to my SUV, handed me money without even asking who I was and then said, I hope you are the RV park guy? Yes, lol.  

Then some other people called.  We'll be there in 3 hours, is that okay? Yes - they were asking because that is well outside the window of most RV parks time limit for showing up.  That's a couple more hours from onw.

Then, another lady called wanting to reserve a spot in March.  Ok?  4 days. Ok? I'm fine with that, lol.  They wanted a specific spot - it's the one I'm using to hook into power, but I should definitely be done with that project by then.

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And bam, just like that. The people for March are booked and paid.  The people showing up for overnight are walking the doggy trail right now - yes, even in this cold weather they were all excited about that trail. I was excited that someone was finally going to walk it! Another couple started on it a while back but it was getting dark.  

And the longer term guy paid up.  This is what I'm talking about.  More of these overnighters, please. I gave them a discount over an already discounted rate. They wanted to pay by card and my laptop was acting up. They wrote a check so I gave them $5 off for the "inconvenience".  Really isn't an inconvenience, but maybe I'll get a review out of them? No clue.  

The trash dude across the street? Animals are getting into the trash now and scattering it everywhere. He is now piling the trash up on his porch.  It's disgusting.  It is a horrible image and I completely forgot to send the mail out to the lady who owns the property.  I will definitely have that letter in the mailbox for pickup tomorrow. If she doesn't do anything about it, I dunno what to do.  I am not going to clean up their mess - tho I have been sorely tempted - because then they'll just think they can do that forever.  

There are giant birds - look like some form of vultures - picking at the trash all the time now besides the signs of animals having dragged the garbage all over the place. The only thing I can say is, even tho it is a horrible look coming into the park, my park is so far back you can't even see that nastiness from the park or even if you can, it's a distant view. I'll have to look tomorrow, but people aren't going to be looking at trash.  

I dunno, I could go on but we are fixing to leave for Longview to go on our bowling adventure with the gang.  

 What happened last night? I was laying there around - whatever time it was in the middle of the night - had turned the light on to get up for a minute.  The light turned itself off.  

Anyway, I have this T Mobile thing that didn't work at the house - tho it was supposed to, I'm taking it over to the property this morning, plugging it in and finding out whether it will work over there.  If not? It's going straight back to T Mobile and they can refund my $50. 

One cheat day - my birthday - and after 5 days, I'm almost back down to where I was when I took the cheat day.  There is a bit of regret on that one - I didn't expect to gain that much weight that quickly or take that long to get it back off.  I won't be doing that again anytime soon.  Give me 3 months or so and I might start discussing a cheat day.

As it stands, we went to a place called Fire and Dice last night for dinner - it's a gaming place but they have a Thursday special for hamburgers with whatever you want on them for $5.  I actually took my own break, ordered the hamburger without bread and used mine. That may sound tacky, it is what it is.  

We are going bowling tonight - I'll just make sure I've eaten before we leave. Haven't been bowling in ages.  I brought it up to the group a while back and it gained some steam to the point that everyone decided they must go, kids and all.  The kids here have never been bowling before, that should be entertaining.  I love bowling. Not particularly good at it but it's fun. The bowling alley in our town closed - I think it was Covid that killed that place.  It's never reopened. They're using the parking lot to train new truck drivers how to parallel park, back in to spaces and general maneuvering.  

I'd go warn all of those people about the horrid aspects of trucking, but - maybe it's their lifeline.  There's plenty of money to be made in that industry, but there is heavy sacrifice to get it. I won't go into all of that, just to say that eventually - sooner or later - I will have to go back into it.  Even with a full park, well maybe I could eek by a living off of it.  I don't think I can get an expansion loan without having some solid income tho and that park just isn't going to cut it as it currently stands. 

I knew that getting into this thing.  I had to start somewhere.  ATM I've got the Amex card, have used it twice and now will wait a couple of weeks and then pay it down to zero.  This will slowly build a credit history.  I'm going to need more lines of credit, this is just what I have at the moment.  The shed loan is in my name, not the business name.  The land loan the same.  

I was just sent a piece of mail - real mail/snail mail - from some group that offered me $74,000 for the property.  What a great price!  More like, you can't be serious.  Even without the park on it, the property is now worth between 150 to 200k.  Add the park and we're more like 350k.  It's not for sale, but it will eventually be used as collateral for a loan somewhere in the vicinity of 250k.  That will upgrade the park from 14 spots to around 50, add a pool and some other amenities that will draw people.  It will also pave that driveway. 

With 50 occupied sites, I can retire.  Well, I can retire from the rat race. I don't consider the stuff I do at the park any form of rat race at all. It's hard work most of the time, but I do enjoy it.  It would be nice if I had another 40k laying around right now to do some of the things it needs and add at least 5 more spaces.  

Now that's a thought.  What if I just went for a smaller loan and only added maybe 10 spaces?  

I could live off of that.  After expenses and taxes I'd take in around 4 grand a month.  That's not bad.  Not for take home pay.  Umm, but right now I'm just struggling to fill the place up.  I still only have 1 Google review.  I have a great review on Hipcamp, I'm hoping that might translate into some more business and a great Facebook review. I need the google reviews, frankly.  

The people I let tent camp overnight for free, in exchange for a Google review? Yup, they never did it.  The people I helped that were struggling to find a place at nighttime? Nothing from them, either and yes, I asked.  The newbies? I won't ask them for a while. Let them stay a bit and then I'll see if they're interested.  

I'm not sure how the parents think about it, but they aren't stopping him from going to church, so I am going to continue on with my discussions with the boy about the Lord.  He asked God to speak to him out in the wood a while back.  I don't make fun of children and their youthfulness and their perspective of the world or in this case - God.  And God knows and even tells us to have a "childlike faith". It's amazing how this kid is really getting interested in knowing more about the Lord.  

For right now, it's time to get my @$$ over to the property and try to get some serious work done today on the laundry project.


 Friday late-morning Typical morning when there is no work.  It was, I should say, until the new guy called.  "There's nothing wron...