Looking Forward

The part time job of delivering mortgage delinquency letters I’ve written about in a previous blog has some interesting twists and turns.

Recently I was able to help a couple sort out an administrative nightmare. Seems their mortgage has been sold twice within a month and now they are getting dunned by two different companies. The couple is totally frustrated. They have the money to bring their account up to date; they just don’t know who to pay and are sitting on the money until they clearly know who holds the mortgage. I don’t blame them.

My youngest son, 100% disabled Army vet, still has kids to raise with all that implies including braces for growing teeth. I suggested he consider doing what I am doing. Long story short, my employer has signed him up and are giving him a ton of work.

I’m grateful. He is a worker, always has been from his early teens, and cannot work a regular job. He has days when he has mobility issues. The job allows him to work his own schedule, within reason, and on his good days he gets a lot done. I hear a much better tone of voice when we talk on the cell, more upbeat, without the undertone of depression. He is so damn tough it breaks my heart when I know he is struggling.

I may abandon the COLOEXIT plan. A tax credit scheme 62+ senior complex is near completion in my town. I’m 98% accepted. The anti government part of me is screaming, “You hypocrite”, for becoming involved in a semi-socialist scheme. Another part of me says, “Son, you have been, and continue to this day, paying income taxes for 61 years. Time you got some back”.

(The husband of the recently defeated Senator from MO has profited greatly selling these tax credits.)

All residents of the 200 unit complex are over 62. The majority are women. I’m single. Possibilities????

https://hamiltonpropertiescorporation.com/locations/peakview-trails

If this doesn’t work out, the COLOEXIT plan can be restarted.

Looking forward, those I care about have their health, jobs, and a roof over their head. Can’t ask for more.

Here is wishing all reader a happy and prosperous 2019.

Railfan

Railfans may find some interest in this post. Others might want to skip it.

Locomotive manufacturing in the USA is in sorry shape, IMO, but Siemens, the German conglomerate, builds locomotives in Sacramento. Recently they secured an Amtrak order.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/amtrak/news/Amtrak-orders-75-new-locomotives-from-Siemens--56369

I grew up along the tracks. For ten years my father worked for the Denver and Rio Grande maintaining tracks. I tried to watch the three passenger trains the D&RG ran daily, the California Zephyr, 

the Prospector (Denver to Salt Lake City)

 and the Yampa Valley Mail (Denver to Craig).

 Seeing them was exciting to a growing lad.

 As an employee, my father could get “passes” at greatly reduced prices. My mother and I made several trips to Denver on the Yampa Valley Mail from the various towns we lived in.

I’m happy to see the new Amtrak units will be A/C instead of D/C. Tesla was right and Edison wrong.

YMMV

Wall Job

Greybeard has a post up about shade-tree mechanics that brings to mind several stories. This is one.

https://pitchpull.blogspot.com/2018/12/shade-tree-mechanics-rip.html

In the dark ages car repair emporiums would perform “wall jobs”. You left your car. The ‘mechanic’ would add some high octane gasoline, take the vehicle for a hard, high revving drive, blow the carbon out of the engine, and park it next to a wall. Two days later the customer could pick the vehicle up (after paying an inflated bill).

The wife and I traded in her Volvo P1800 she had before we married for a Renault 16. Car seats and new babies don’t work with a sports coupe. The R 16 worked well for us until we moved to Ogden, UT. The dealer there was a thief. 

After the 2^nd large bill, before the car went in again, I spent thirty minutes or so making small marks on bolt heads and block. Sure enough when I picked up the car, all the marks were in place indicating they hadn’t moved anything. A classic “wall job”.  Then my wife informed me she had received two calls from the owner that she felt were unrelated to the work on the car. She found the calls to be “flirtatious”. 

Caution: Don’t fuck with a Norwegian woman’s money. We had a conversation with the owner ending with him bouncing off the wall of his showroom. Someone called  the police.

Being a prominent member of the LDS Church, the owner decided he wanted the whole episode to just go away. All moneys spent at his business were refunded then and there.

Our son by that time was walking and the Renault was traded in on a Dodge Charger (at a different dealer). I thought a 2 door wasn’t the best choice but the ‘yes dear’ factor was a large influence on that decision. 

She didn’t like our International Travelall 4x4 with a 4 speed. I didn’t understand that. I mean, she was 5’4” and the seat went far enough forward for her to reach the pedals. Plus, it had power steering. What’s not to like?

Thinking back, that Renault was a bitch to work on. The metal was soft and you needed to careful not to over torque bolts. The ride was wonderful, great fuel economy, and it went well in snow. We purchased it at a huge discount given the trade allowance they gave us on the Volvo. The Volvo was a huge money pit – I was glad to see it go away. I worked on the Renault two times a year. The Volvo, once a month.

 

If you appreciate reliable vehicles avoid European cars. Leading the list are Italian, British, French, Swede, and German. YMMV. I believe I have some creditability because at some point I’ve owned all.

Getting back to the shade-tree part, maybe it was the mechanic and not the car.

Seat Belts

You can’t fix stupid, as the saying goes. What about willful ignorance? Maybe a slap alongside the head from abuela’s chancla might work.

Once again hard knowledge from someone who knows.

https://www.greeleytribune.com/news/colorado-state-patrol-chief-responds-to-anti-seatbelt-arguments/

Look here! If you don’t care about your own life, have some consideration for the first responders. Much easier for them to extract your intact carcass from the wreck than picking up your scattered body parts or spilled intestines, don’t you agree?

Christmas Tree Story

Old NFO has a Christmas Tree post which sparked a sixty+ year old memory of how my parents found some lifelong friends in a small town where we had just moved.

https://oldnfo.org/2018/12/20/tbt-140/

My dad was managing an ice house in Rollinsville, CO. That was in the days before home refrigerators were common. The Estes Ice Company had a dam on Coal Creek and a large four story warehouse. Blocks of ice would be cut out of the frozen reservoir, stored in the warehouse, and shipped by rail to Denver where ice was delivered to homes and businesses.

My Dad and I climbed a steep hill looking for the right Christmas tree. He cut one down and ‘we’ dragged it down to the road. He left it there and we went back to the house for the truck. When we came back the tree was gone!

The next night my parents went into town to the Stage Stop. There, nicely decorated, was ‘our’ tree.

Seems Mike and Vera Neal were driving down the road, saw the tree, picked it up and delivered it to the Stage Stop. From that awkward start, the Neals became lifelong friends and godparents to my sister who came along a few years later.

Mike and Vera were childless pensioners who had spent most of their lives in Central City when it was still a rip roaring mining town. Both had previous marriages. They were lifelong staunch Republicans and had a framed picture of President Eisenhawer with signature prominently displayed in their living room.

Both were walking history books about Gilpin County and were fine raconteurs. They had a house off the upper Moon Gulch road that was a challenge to reach in the winter. We had many a Sunday dinner there.

Old NFO has a picture of an aluminum Christmas tree. I heartily approve. Growing up in rural areas with little or no fire protection we lived with a constant awareness of fire danger. I have an early childhood memory from Rollinsville of watching a family in their night clothes standing in snow and watching everything they owned going up in flames.

Raising my own family, we always had an artificial tree for just that reason.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm

Rarely do I look at  the blog stats. Many bloggers get more visits in a day than I do in a month. What surprises me is the traffic sources that come from porn sites.

Now I admit I enjoy the female form but am not much of a spectator. If all porn were to vanish from the internet tomorrow I wouldn't be disturbed. Oh well, maybe it is my use of vernacular that triggers their search engines.

Don't seem to have much of an international audience. Since I'm basically xenophobic I couldn't give a rats ass.

Maybe in a month or so I will go back and look at this again.  

Bean Counters

A car story with a dash of bashing bean counters.

2003 found me working for an aggressive car dealer, Steve, a rodeo bull rider, who was a cinch short of a roping saddle.

We had gone from a two lot operation focused on used pickups, stock and utility trailers and occasional livestock to adding a Kia dealership. At one point we had three Kia stores.

Steve got it in his mind to have offsite sales. Colorado regulations allowed up to five days. He had a motor home taken in trade he wanted to use for a mobile office. He hired a man with “experience” and the first sale was a near disaster. For my sins, he and the General Manager decided to put me in charge of the program, the “Roadshow” as it was called.

The challenge intrigued me. My one demand was no one could dispute my decisions. Only Steve, the owner, and the General Manager could counter my decisions. That took two days to resolve but I prevailed. Of course, I was expected to account for all expenditures. No problem.

Steve’s instructions were straightforward.

“Do it right, do it legal, don’t cut corners”.

Man of his word. In the next three years we held about 60 sales in 18 different Colorado towns. I spent north of two million of his dollars. In that time we probably talked less than two hours. All he wanted from me was, “It’s handled or, It’s not handled because….”

Now to the bean counter part. Our pace was two to three sales a month. I would hit a town, find a space to rent, arrange telephone service, arrange advertising, and reserve motel rooms. This placed a great deal of stress on the accounting side of the business as I needed to move fast. At our home store this was no problem. At our Grand Junction store we had a person who got outside her lane, questioning everything I did and slow walking the money.

Had a short meeting with Steve.

Me. “I’m supposed to be working for you. Right now I’ve got $8,000 of my own money invested in your business because your bitch running the books won’t cut the checks – thinks I have to get her approval first”.

Steve, with a grin. “I like that, your money in my business”.

Shortly he defined her lane. As the conversation was reported to me,

Steve. “Who’s fucking name is on this business?”

Her. “Yours.”

Steve. “Then who are your to question my instructions to the Tank? The Roadshow is another store and he is the General Manager.”

Should say at the home store as I entered accounting with a fist full of check requests Shirley would greet me with,

“No! Get the fuck out of here with your bullshit!”

She loved me! Always got my checks done within an hour.

After three years of the Roadshow we shut down. The Kia incentives dried up. Steve had me find used car locations. At one point we had five used car stores. I “supervised” the managers, i.e, herded the cats.

I ended up doing all kinds of weird stuff for Steve. He liked me because I always got the job done, and I never failed to account for every penny. He didn’t like that I could piss off half the state getting the job done but he always had my back.

He had a strong friendship with the President of Kia America who bought control of a remanufactured engine company when he left Kia. Got Steve involved in pumping up sales. Yah, guess who Steve put in charge of that!

Steve finally crashed and burned. Had to start all over. He is still out there plugging away and fishing. The man lives to go fishing.

Keeping a business on track from the financing side is a thankless task. I have the greatest respect for those who do it well. It is when they decide they also need to have control over other parts of the business that we part ways.