I thought I was going to bed early.

I was commenting on the manager/s/owners forum on facebook for rv parks about the new park that recently sold (in context with a thread about such things) and the owner of the 2 major competitors replied to me. "Oh, did they sell that already?". This conversation on the page went into some depth before she contacted me via Facebook DM and then it went on even much longer. 

They are doing very poorly, I'm finding out. Not wishing that upon them, but the idea of having a sardine lot style RV park is catching up to them.  And tho they have a lot of great reviews on Google, they have plenty of not-so-flattering reviews that tell the story about driveways in dire need of repair, long term that stay up making noise and the sardine can style of park that many RV'ers are steering clear of.  I really don't wish ill-will upon my competitors, especially when they are reaching out asking things that clearly point to the fact that they are hurting.

She is ready to walk away from the RV industry and upon finding out that the new park sold for so much, she wondered out loud if it were the right time? I can't tell her that, but I can say that parks are going for high dollar amounts right now. Whether it stays that way, who knows?  I am not in this to build and then flip, I'm in it for long term income.  We're 9 years away from receiving 75% of Social Security. This isn't guess work anymore, it's nine years. Well, I won't even qualify for SS until 2026.  So what does that leave me? 

It leaves me a government that doesn't give a rat's @$$ about the citizens it is supposedly serving and the fact that all of those politicians that continue to ignore this problem are also getting rich off of the system they are allegedly in it "solely" for the purpose of making citizen' lives better.  Can you imagine if any of this TRILLIONS of dollars that have been spent in the last several years would have been spent to address SS insolvency?  And if SS is facing a chopping block, you can bet that Medicare will be on that list as well. 

Anyway, they are apparently in such dire straits that they are trying a new approach to attracting people by combining 2 of their lots to make one. She said that so far, there are no takers.  She was jealous of my park's layout with 40 feet wide lots.  I was listening to her story, so I didn't bother to tell her mine.  The reality is, it's a tight market and it's fixing to get a lot tighter.  I'm going to "save" myself by getting a job on the "side", I doubt any of these parks will do that.  My motivation is to increase the number of spaces and amenities to make it much more attractive place to live. Plus, get rid of ALL of the acres of weeds and have grass there instead.  

I informed her another competitor that also has a sardine can setup is completely full.  I made the supposition (the act of supposing, you can access that in Meriam's, thank you) (or if you will, I assumed) (perhaps the correct word is figured) ("I felt") (and endless other words/combinations I could insert here)..that they are charging less and probably far less to get those people in there. There is no other explanation for people willing to cram themselves in so close together that they can literally (yes, I do mean literally) touch their neighbor's slide outs while standing directly next to their own trailer.  

I really had no idea they were doing so badly.  

I can say curb appeal at the main park is atrocious.  I could give them some help in that department and it wouldn't cost a lot of money, but I decided to zip it.  

Well whatever. One can wonder about things to come forever and just waste a lot of time in doing so.  It's now very late and yes, finally getting sleepy.  

 Monday

Not so early

Oh well.  Woke up in the middle of the night and took hours to get back to sleep. I've been trying to force myself to get out of bed earlier but I just said screw it today and slept as long as I could. 

Last day of summer for the kids. School starts tomorrow (why they start on a Tuesday is unknown to me, but most of what goes on in schools nowadays is a curiosity to me as it stands) - apparently they are being made to work around the house today.  

I"m trying to figure out whether I can last all the way until basically the end of next month before I get a first paycheck.  I'll have to get back to ya on that one.  It's not the greatest job, a bit lower on the pay scale and definitely smaller weekly paychecks than previous job, the upside is that it's home daily and can't really be that much of a day (at least by trucking standards) if it's only 350 miles of driving.  But, you add a couple hours to that for loading or unloading.  

I'm not sold on that job yet.  It's just the one that stood out for home daily (or most days anyway).  There are other home daily jobs, but most of those are 12-14 hour days.  So, the concept of "home" is go there, go home, eat,  go to sleep and get up for work the next morning.  Doing that, might as well just do the same type of job I was doing before.  

There are other types of jobs, such as propane delivery.  I don't know how to do that, of course, but it's just another learning situation.  Methodology.  There is some sort of winch truck position available, they are always posting for it but they demand experience.  Well, apparently there aren't that many experienced drivers for that particular role since they are always - and I mean this has been going on for years - posting that particular job.  Fuel delivery, hauling salt water or oil that comes from gas wells, all kinds of stuff. 

I will be spending ample time this week and coming weeks putting in applications and exploring what I can get myself into that makes decent money and still gets me home.  

Today, however, I am still intent on going over there, weedeating more lots and getting the place looking a little more presentable.  I'm still not happy about the lack of grass. Oh, and I want to drive over to the new RV, Cabins and Tiny Homes park and see if I can get in there and take a look at what they have done with the place. The only pics atm are old and only show where they've done the dirt work. No gravel or asphalt down, you can make out the lots.  

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Yay.  The boss of the guy that just moved is coming tomorrow "for at least a month".  I'll take a month over nothing. It's the way it's been working at my park and right now, I need whatever I can get to pay park bills and pay my personal bills.  I've got to go get my payment book and see who owes what - when.  Pretty sure there are 2 payments due, just need to look them up.  No, just one due as of yesterday, already contacted them and awaiting their reply. But, they are long - long termers, at least by their statements. They've just completed their first month. So far, they seem happy?  I dunno. I just talked with the man the other day for about 30 minutes.  The lady is pregnant and they eventually want to buy their own house, but he deferred and said "that won't be until sometime next year at the earliest".

My job is to try and keep everyone happy.  Try being the operative word.  Do what you can.  

It is hard, however, to try to deal with a person's unhappiness about any given thing if they don't say anything to me about it. The 3 I wouldn't have known about without the bartender relaying the info to me - tho I would have cleaned up their lots anyway.  It just gave a sense of urgency - they like to call it that in the corporate world - to get it done sooner than I was going to.  

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I decided to do nothing today.  Hang out with the kids (this is their last day of summer, rise and shine bright and early at 5:40 am for school, I can only imagine what tomorrow afternoon when they get home is going to be like),  give myself more rest time, watch a couple of movies and take it easy.  There isn't any real point in pushing myself to do "stuff" that can wait another day.  Just more tending to lots and a little more cleanup in the shed.  

I have spent hours, however, looking at local jobs.  The jobs that pay the most are the jobs hauling cryo and all of them have cameras and microphones.  One of the companies is so desperate for drivers, they are willing to hire new drivers 6 months out of driving school.  Next time you see one of those cryo tankers driving down the road hauling hazardous materials - and many of them are highly flammable - understand that the person behind the wheel could be a greenhorn to driving.  It is quite amazing that they are even allowed to hire drivers with little experience behind the wheel.  

But, many drivers are terrified of hauling hazmat (I know I was at first) and won't do it. Most of us have been duped into believing that getting your hazmat endorsement is next-to-impossible. In my case, it was backed up with several drivers I knew that had tried to pass the test but failed.  

My method is pretty much fail proof. The job I have lined up is some version of hazmat tanker, just not cryo. Cryo doesn't require wasting time with washouts.  Where you have to take the trailer to a professional washout facility to have the trailer cleaned out.  Cryo is just easier.  But, I have no desire to sit in a truck being watched and listened to.  I think people sitting in an office somewhere listening to you talking on the phone or whatever is the worse of the two.  Just creepy. 

I dunno. I still have time to change my mind about that, but it's a lot of time sitting in a driver's seat with those kind of ridiculous conditions constantly present.  

The high tomorrow and Wednesday 92 and 93 and then right back into 100 plus highs the rest of the week.  I will take advantage of that tomorrow for sure.  Even get the chain saw going and cut some felled trees.  Not on the trails, stuff around the perimeter of the park.  One tree especially annoying for where it fell. Well, take that back. Where it fell would have dumped on a trailer if there had been one parked there.  Very grateful that didn't happen.  

But it got moved out of the way at an end lot and it needs to be gone.  

It's just that I have lost yet another chainsaw tool. The kind that has a sort of socket wrench on one end to loosen the nuts on the chain bar and the other is a screwdriver on the other end to tighten the chain up once you loosen the nuts. It was on the 4 wheeler - but it's not there anymore and I've dug through everything I have looking for it.  You have to adjust chains frequently enough while doing a cutting job that the tool is really required. Otherwise, you are lugging around a socket wrench with a socket and a screwdriver. Doesn't sound like much, but the actual tool just slips into your back pocket.

Anyway, enough of this.  Going to bed early tonight.