A couple days ago I decided to look into what all this Twitter frenzie is about.  So I opened an account.  So far I’ve resisted opening a Facebook account as I don’t have a whole lot of time for that kind of stuff.  But Twitter is different.  It’s very short blogs that come to you on one page or your cell phone.  Takes hardly any time.  Like anyone, I have my own stars that I like to follow.  For reasons I can’t totally explain, I like Britney Spears.  She has a Twitter page and actually posts her own tweets.  Probably one reason she’s #3 on Twitter’s top 10 list.  If you want to follow me on twitter, go to www.twitter.com/mhrepair.  Sorry, I’m probably not as interesting as Britney Spears (well, OK, maybe I am.)

It’s April, and even tho we still have some snow on the ground, I’ve officially declared it Spring.  I’ve gotten rosters for my son’s soccer and baseball teams.  I coach his soccer team and am an assistant coach on his baseball team.  My soccer team is defending last year’s championship title, so everyone will be out to get us. Our first practice is tomorrow afternoon.

Our busy season is fall and winter.  So spring signifies our slower season is starting.  We have so many projects to do, that it will seem anything but slow around here.  Products mainly involve adding or expanding new product lines. 

Going to my parents for Easter.  Be a nice break.  My parents recently got back from wintering in the Florida Keys.  We did go see them in late December.  The Florida Keys are such a nice place to be.  Wife and I ate a cheesburger at Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant at Key West.  I also drank a bottle of his Landshark beer.  Saved the bottle too!  Have then since discovered that I can buy the beer around here.  Good stuff!

Last month we bought an old camper.  Planning on taking it to the Sturgis Rally.   Be cheaper than renting a cabin.  Already got our camping spot reserved at the Chip.  The Chip has been revealing their lineup of acts.  So far I think last year’s acts are better.  Aerosmith, George Thorogood, Toby Keith, Cheech & Chong, Billy Squier, Lita Ford, Clearance Clearwater Revisited and Telsa have been announced so far for this year.  Last year Kid Rock & Sugarland performed.  Will be hard to top that.

Mark

Wow, has it been since June since I lost wrote!  So some quick updates. 

Over the 4th of July we went to Branson, MO.  Visited my son’s birthmom.  She is living in a women’s shelter.  Not what we expected, but doing good.  At the end of our visit, we wondered would our son want to stay with his birth mom, or come back with his adopted parents (us).  When it was time to leave, he was waiting in the car, ready to return to his life and friends back home.  He likes his life here!

As a tourist town, Branson for the most part is not for me.  Too many Elvis impersonators for my taste!  However, I did enjoy Dolly Parton’s dinner theatre.  You ate the whole dinner without utensils, including the soup and a whole chicken.  It was a blast!  We also visited the Titanic museum.  Wasn’t what I expected but still interesting.  We also did the free wine tasting at a local winery.  Enjoyed that as there was no limit on the number of wines you could taste.  Sort of reminded me sitting at a shot bar!  LOL. 

My fall soccer team had a great season.  Only one team we couldn’t beat during the regular season.  Would we be able to beat them in the season-end tournament?  Nobody thought we had a chance.  As expected, we met them at the championship game and won!  Such a huge victory.  What a feeling when you come back as the underdog and win.

I previously mentioned that I was being sued for towing a car, that I didn’t tow.  I went to court.  The person suing me never showed up, so the case was thrown out. 

Speaking of court, I’m on jury duty.  Where we live, jury duty lasts for 3 months.  You call in about once a week and listen to a recording.  The recording says to come to court, or call back again.  I’m one month into jury duty, and so far I have not had to come in.  Only 2 more months to go!

Once again this year we went to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  Stayed at the Buffalo Chip a wonderful 5 days this year.  Our favorite concerts were Kid Rock, Sugarland, 3 Doors Down and Kellie Pickler.  I found it interesting that you could ride your motorcycle right up to the stage and watch the show that way.  Aeorosmith is already scheduled for next year.  This year we rented a cabin.  It was really nice, except no bathroom facilities.  And to get to a ‘good’ bathroom, the walk was so far away that it was just easier to ride the motorcycle to go take a crap.   Next year we’d like to bring our own camper.  So been watching the classifieds.  There is an auction coming up next Saturday for one.  Maybe it’ll go cheap!

As for parts sales, this is our busy season with lots of furnace parts being sold and shipped.  We also are just in the process of expanding our store.  We rented the empty space next to us.  Made our shipping room bigger.  Gave my wife a bigger office.  Also moved the furnace parts to its own room so we could expand the showroom with other mobile home items. 

My tv ad contract is still running.  I still have mixed reviews about it.  I think it ends perhaps next month!

Voting is in 2 days.  Get out and vote!  Have to say that South Dakota has been a little immune to the whole election process.  Our 3 electorial votes don’t mean much to the presidential candidates, so they don’t waste much time and money here.  We also don’t have any big earth-shattering senate or house races that could change the make-up of congress or the senate.  So we are enjoying a lot less election commercials than many of you are getting.

Mark

In my last blog of a few days ago, I forgot to mention that I was being sued.  Guess I forgot about it, so that’ll tell you how much I’m worrying about the summons I got.  In fact, this one is so out-there that I’m not even involving my attorney.

Up until the first of the year, I managed a 210 unit mobile home park.  Within the last couple years, our city gov’t has taken a strong stance on cleaning-up the city.  One ordinance says that your vehicles must be Read the rest of this entry »

If I had to do it all over again, I would take the money I’m spending on cable tv advertising and instead hire a programmer to help me finish up some web pages.  I do much of my own website programming, and right now I’m a bit overwhelmed. 

Even with all the extra free ads the cable tv company threw in just to keep me happy, local traffic to my store

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Much of my day is spent on the phone talking to customers, contractors & suppliers.  Today I had an interesting call from a contractor who lived about 200 miles from me. 

Several months ago he left his job working for a mobile home repair company to start his own business repairing mobile homes. Today he called and said he shut his doors.  Out of business.  Said he couldn’t get

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A few weeks ago I started blogging regularily, and I admit I like doing it. I’m also blown away at how many of you are also reading all the hubba-bubba that I write. My website tech guys have also noticed and they feel I should switch my blogging to the more popular WordPress software for even greater exposure. So stay tuned for the switch. I’ll show you the way! Read the rest of this entry »

Hi,

Tonight I’m hosting a company picnic at my house. Besides the occasional group of relatives, we’re pretty much non-entertainers. We don’t mean to be unentertaining, we just never seem to have time to invite people over. My 10-year-old son was about shell-shocked when we told him about tonight’s picnic. “Gees, you guys never have parties,” says our son.
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Our cable tv commercials have run for a week. It brought in a couple lookers who had nothing else to do. So I’m frustrated with the local response to my mobile home parts store. But then again, I get tons of rv and camper people stopping in looking for parts. I have some basic rv plumbing parts, but that’s about it. So maybe I need to convert to an RV store? Something to ponder, although the parts most RV people are looking for are nickle and dime parts that won’t pay the rent anyway.
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Hi,

Our new cable tv commercial began airing today. If you click to my home page at www.mobilehomerepair.com, you can see the commercial. So far I haven’t seen it on tv, but I won’t be home watching much tv until next week. Right now it’s tournament time for my son’s spring sports.
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Hi,

I’ve been receiving your e-mails saying I need to blog more. So I promise to try and blog weekly or more often, as apparently blogging once every couple years isn’t cutting it! LOL.
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