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

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

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 licensed and operational (ie no flat tires, etc).  If not, it better be in a garage or someplace out of site. 

Shortly after I turned the park keys over to a new manager, the city drove thru the mobile home park and wrote down every vehicle that was not in compliance to the city clean-up ordinance.  The list was handed over to the new management, who had to enforced it or face fines themselves. 

After several warnings by management, one person failed to get valid licence plates, so the park manager had them towed.  The other day I received a notice that I’m being sued for nearly $3,000 in towing and storage fees. 

My first thought was gees, why did you keep the car in storage for so long?  My second thought is that how can I be sued when I wasn’t even manager at the time!  And I certainly had nobody towed since then.

Apparently the tenant found an old paper with my name on it, and assumed I was still manager and filed a small claims suit against me.  So today I stopped up to the courthouse to deny the claim based upon the fact that I didn’t have his car towed.  And I also listed that the reason the car was towed is because the city ordered the mobile home park to have it towed or risk being fined.

I know, park management should have taken care of everything filed the claim on my behalf.  But nothing would urk me more than to be liable for something as dumb as this because someone didn’t file a letter of denial in a timely manner.  And since my name is on the small claims, I took matters into my own hands.

The clerk said that most likely the judge would throw-out the case, but a court date still needs to be set.  So a letter will soon be forthcoming.  When I do go to court, I’ll have the current manager and a representative from the city with me just in case the judge still wants to hear the case.

Really, if the guy wants to sue anyone, he should be suing the city as they are the ones who issued the orders to have the car removed or licensed in X number of days. Basically the whole thing is just a big waste of time for all involved.

Court won’t be until July or maybe even August, so stay tuned.  The circus continues. . .

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

in Aberdeen hasn’t increased one bit.  Perhaps 6 months from now I’ll feel different.  Otherwise its live & learn.

For buying tv advertising, the cable company gave me a free 20″ monitor.  The monitor came in real handy when I ordered a new computer for my office which also included a 20″ monitor.  So I hooked both monitors together and holy moly — I love it!  How did I ever live with just 1 monitor!  Amazing.

So far June internet sales have been great.  Since I started this online business many years ago, I have not had a down month in sales.  Of course I’m always adding new products & online services to keep sales rolling.  I’ve been continuing to add more pex plumbing parts, and also I added a page of Nordyne filters & misc.  The Nordyne items have been sitting in my office for more than a year, so about time I got them added, eh! 

I still have an office clogged with stuff to add to my online store, and then on my store shelves.  All it takes is time — so where is that programmer I need to help me do this?  Oh yea, I don’t have one.  I’m instead paying for cable tv advertising that’s not working!

My son’s baseball team lost 3-4 today.  Interestingly, my son scored all three of the team’s runs, so a proud parent moment.  My son also pitches.  He pitched last Friday to a 1-point loss.  He pitches again this Friday.  Games are at 3:30pm, and wild horses won’t keep me away from them!

Mark

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

enough business to survive, and our rainy cold spring didn’t help matters.  Huh?  Never heard of such a thing around here.

He didn’t know if it was the economy or what, but suddenly he had a lot of competition in the mobile home repair business, and those other guys were willing to work for about nothing.

I don’t know the contractor personally, so I’m unable to vouch for his quality of work.  But on the phone he seemed like a nice guy.  Maybe he just lacked business skills.

To the average worker, running a business may look easy.  They see all the money their boss is making, and say, “Gees, that looks simple.  I can do that.”  In reality it isn’t all that simple.  Just because someone is good at their trade, doesn’t necessarily make them a good business owner. 

Again, I don’t know the whole story with this contractor, but I was surprised to find out the business didn’t work out for him.  A few years ago I was looking for someone like him to take under my wings and show them the business.  I never did find that person, and now I don’t have the time.

On another subject, I have a goal of installing a web cam in the store.  That way you can all see that I don’t goof off too much!   :wink:  All I gotta do is figure out what software I need and how to connect it to the website.  Heck, it might even make a good security tool as I can check on the store at night! 

Mark

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.

OK, so let me do a quick catch-up. Around January 1, 2008, we moved our mobile home parts store to a larger location. I also hired a full-time person (Carol Ann) in shipping. So far so good.

Most of our business is internet-based, but now we’ve started a summer campaign to get more local business. We just finished filming a cable tv ad commercial. Yesterday I saw the first copy, and sent it back to the editing room. The voices were all wrong and some critical video was missing. Once I get an approved copy, I’ll post it online for all to view.

Also an update on the mobile home park that we use to manage. After a year I finally gave it up. Getting paid part-time wages to be on-call 24/7 wasn’t my definition of fun. Oh, the owner of the park died a couple weeks ago, so I’m betting the family decides to sell it. Anyway, I’m gone so doesn’t affect me anymore.

My son is in spring baseball and soccer. I coach his soccer team. On Monday night we won and took over the #1 position. Feels good for now, but ya never know when the reign could end. I’ll definitely keep ya updated on the season.

Mark