Archives 2015

Yesterday was my final day off of my extended five day weekend.  In the morning I did my four day blog recap followed by a coffee/Rural King run to get a few things.  I wanted to get some sort of workout in so Cindy agreed to go in the back yard to do some head to head challenges. It was brutally hot and humid with very threatening skies nearby.

We did a several challenges outside including a couple Century circuits and one arm dead hangs before the rain drops started to fall.  We then moved inside for a wall handstand challenge.  I won all of the events except the wall handstand hold.  The Century circuits were very tight, Cindy loves to compete.

Of course we video taped all of it, we all of it except the first Century because I was a dumb ass and forgot to reinsert the SD card into the camera.

You can get a good sense of the silly aura when we workout together from this brief Cindy montage.

So the skies absolutely opened up, dropping several inches of rain on the property in a short period of time.  It instantly transformed what was dry land to instant swamp.  During the worst of it the entire front yard in front of the house mound was under water.  The chickens don’t seem to mind getting wet.  Quite often we will see them running around the yard despite steady rain coming down.

Speaking of the chickens, I forgot to mention we did out first wing clipping of the four young birds.  They are all smaller and better flyers than the six blacks and Lucy.  This was motivated by my seeing two of them by the front office window, they had flown over the four foot fence.  Cindy and I were both nervous about trimming the wings but if you do it correctly the birds don’t feel a thing.

I figured I better gather the fragments of my memory before they are lost.  Friday was my first day of my impromptu 5 day staycation.  Cindy and I started it with a DD bike ride. It was the first time I was taking my freshly modified Trek 2.1 on the road.  Earlier in the week I added a stem extension and aero bars to enhance my riding position comfort.  Despite being a much better/lighter bike, the Trek has spent most of the last two years hanging upside down in my storage shed because it just was uncomfortable to ride.  Instead my 300 dollar Dawes bike was getting all of the road time. My alterations to the Trek had the effect I was hoping for.  It felt good on the road and the higher quality and lower weight of the bike felt noticeable. The 20 mile ride went by without incident.

After we got home I headed outside to get the weeding done while Cindy attended to the chickens and some other things.  After a quick dip in the pool we were ready to head out to Costco.  We wound up getting over $200 in groceries there which is some sort of record.  Hopefully we will be well stocked for awhile.  The grocery slice of my monthly expenditure pie chart in Quicken has been getting quite large lately.

Friday my new megaphone that I ordered for Green Machine Timing showed up.  It’s smaller than the others I have for the running club, only 40 watts max power, but that is part of it’s appeal, it’s easier to carry around.  However the biggest plus for me was it uses a rechargeable lithium battery pack that is encased inside of a built in charger.  The bigger megaphones use 8 C batteries that are a pain in the ass to maintain.  Plus the housing for the batteries is very imprecise so when you have the lid closed you may not get any sound until you jiggle things around.  It’s annoying.  I no longer will have that issue. Cindy and I used it to film a funny Periscope video that she posted on FB.

Friday night was a normal pizza night.  It felt great knowing I had another four days off remaining.

On Saturday morning Cindy and I were up early to go volunteer at the kids triathlon the local triathlete group puts on.   Cindy and my primary responsibility was in the bike transition area where we helped the kids ranging in age from 7-13 stage their bikes and help them as needed during transition.  I also brought my GoPro with to film the event.  I was frustrated that I missed a lot of the little kids with a malfunction early that I got figured out later on.  You can see the kids in action here.  By the time the event was over at 9:30 it felt sweltering hot.

During the afternoon the it became quite rainy and stayed that way for most of the day.  Cindy and I kept ourselves entertained indoors.  There were no movies that came out this week that interested us enough to spend movie theater money for.  Instead we just kept things simple and enjoyed a nice meal while watching my latest Netflix rental, Tracers.  The film was basically one long parkour video but I found it entertaining enough to give an average B rating to the flick.

Sunday we did our second DD ride in three days, something I don’t think I ever did before.  It also meant that in 8 days I rode a total of 70 miles, again new territory for me.  Cindy actually cracked the century mark for those same 8 days since she did an additional 30 mile ride during the week with a friend of hers.  I strapped the GoPro on to my right handlebar for the ride.  It gives an interesting perspective/visual when combined with a soundtrack and ample captioning to fight off the boredom.

After another pool bath we were back in the car to go pick up Nicki and Sadie.  After grabbing them we made a couple stops on the way home.  Sunday afternoon Cindy was quite busy cooking.  She recorded her efforts for her YouTube channel.  I did a lot of video editing, gaming (now have 7 level 100 WoW characters) and paid my bills.

One of the things I wanted to address was the failure email I got from my DD perks account saying the automatic reload of my coffee card failed.  When I logged into my account I saw that the credit card I had associated had the wrong expiration date.  Ok, no problem, I will go in and edit the credit card information.  Well after 10 minutes of futzing around I realized that there is absolutely no way to change the CC info.  Ok, I guess I will just delete the credit card and reenter it with the correct info.  Nope, it won’t let you do that either.  The ONLY way you fix this is with a phone call to them which I made on Monday.  The call required 20-25 minutes of wait time to speak to a person.  After explaining the issue the phone rep says it will take TWO DAYS to clear the card from the system.  I asked her in disbelief “Are you serious?”.  She said it is a limitation of their current set up for credit cards and they are looking to change things in the future.  It seems so odd because in many ways Dunkin Donuts seems very modern and tech savy in their business practices.  To have such a ridiculously inefficient set up to manage credit cards seems very odd.

Monday morning Cindy and I took Nicki (and Sadie) to the vet.  I made an appointment for Nicki to have some large masses on her belly looked at further.  She has had them for awhile but they seem to be really growing and I wanted to get an updated opinion from the vet about them to see if he thought anything needed to be done at this point.  This was the same vet that did the eyelid surgery that drastically helped Nicki’s vision.

He agreed the lumps were getting pretty big but said that labs are prone to growing fatty masses as they age.  The general advice is if they are not causing the dog pain or discomfort the best course of action is to just let them be as the risk of surgery on an old dog could outweigh the benefit of removal.  I mentioned how Nicki’s bark has been sounding progressively weaker.  He said it is likely due to another old lab trait where the tissue that covers the larynx (forget medical term), becomes partially paralyzed.  The end result is difficulty in breathing.  (Nicki also pants all the time)

The vet did aspirate one of the masses to send it out for testing to be sure. (a $200 gotcha) However we basically just confirmed that Nicki is old and is having old dog issues.  I wish I could wave a wand and make it go away.  While we were there both dogs got their nails trimmed which was very needed.

When we got home I got a bug in my head to pressure wash the pool deck and cage.  I HATE this house maintenance chore but a glance at the pure green scuzz on some sections of the cage combined with my extra time off made it seem like I would be an idiot for not doing it now.  The end result was several hours shoulder/forearm burning labor as I directed the 3000 psi wand overhead with sometimes as much as an 9 foot extension hanging off of it.  It is miserable.  Doing it during the crushing heat of the afternoon added to the misery.

I wasn’t happy that at a few spots on the pool deck which we carefully prepped and double coated with pool deck stain lifted off under pressure.  It was in areas where the deck is especially smooth.  Maybe it needs to be roughed up a bit before we touch it up.  Anyway, the pool area looked tremendously better by the time I was done.  Hopefully it will be the holidays before I have to think about it again.

After I took the dogs back to Ali’s place Cindy and I chilled most of the night catching up on a backlog of dvr’d content.  For my final day of my staycation I have no major plans other than some type of workout and whatever other minor things come to mind.  We already had excitement this morning, the unwelcomed type.  There was a hawk no more than 25 feet away from the pond area the chickens were hanging under.  It was sitting in the palm tree.  It was oddly unafraid of me.  I was able to walk right up to the tree with my bb gun in hand without it moving.  I yelled at it to get lost but he only retreated a short distance away.  I then used my weapon to fire a few warning shots and again they were ineffective.  I kept walking and firing until the hawk was a 100 yards off in a tree behind the back fence line.

Yes it makes both Cindy and I nervous to have hawks scouting out the chickens.  The good thing is the property has a bunch of hiding spots for our birds and all of them are healthy, decent sized and fast.  Hopefully this and our continued warning shots makes the hawks realize there are easier targets elsewhere.

It’s hard to believe that today marks the one year anniversary of my mom passing away.  There were many torturous moments during the four day period from when my mom was found in her vehicle unresponsive till life support was removed and we watched her body shut down.  The time since then has been peppered with pain for myself, my family, and our inner circles.

There is something life changing when a parent dies. It clarifies the transience of life despite the efforts of all of us to think otherwise.  It makes you examine choices and reconsider options.  The sadness and weight of loss never goes away.  The best you can hope for is that weight sits on the end of a seesaw which is used to push your life on the other end more upward to a brighter, more appreciative, and happier life.

Below is a collection of pictures which were used at the two memorial services that were held for Mom.  I honor her by sharing them with you.  Love you Mom.

Last night Cindy and I took in the season 2 finale of True Detective. Although I enjoyed season one more, this year was good as well but a bit frustrating.  The story had too many facets to keep track of accurately. If you asked me to clearly explain how everything was connected now I would be unable to do so.  It didn’t help that I watched a couple episodes when I was half asleep meaning I missed out on a few details.

I thought it was quite interesting seeing Vince Vaughn play a bad guy.  Until now I associated him with solely playing the lead role in a string of average comedy films.  I think the only film of his that I really found funny was Dodgeball.   Anyway, it took some time for me to shed those past impressions of him as a silly/comedy guy but once I did I appreciated how well he took to the somewhat honorable villain role. Part of my comprehension problem had to do with Colin Farrel delivering a lot of his dialogue in a mumbly manner with a volume slightly above whisper level.  I guess it was part of the character but it made it hard to follow without cranking the volume way up.

The ending of the story was appropriately tragic, you don’t expect to come away from the show with a cute fuzzy bunny sense of the world.   If you don’t mind shows that capture the dark underside of humanity then True Detective should be on your dvr.

I still have been having the phantom smoke smell come and go although lately it has been a lot more come than go.  Yesterday I had the smell in my head for most of the day including all of last night.  I smell it somewhat right now.  If this continues into next week I will probably get the ball rolling to at least rule out anything significant going on.

So as I mentioned yesterday the big perch that the chickens sleep on was due for a retooling last night.  As soon as I got home I headed out to the coop to get started.  Cindy had already done some work during the day on it, flipping the perch on it’s side and removing sections of wood that we would reuse in it’s new orientation.

Having a large triangle for the birds definitely looked like a better option since they seem to all insist on being as high as possible.  We started tacking on additional perching accessories as well as a series of lower rungs to allow the chickens to hop up to the top floor.  As in most of our projects we sort of just played it by ear but by the time we were done it looks like we had a pretty good set up.

When dusk settled in we watched on the surveillance cam and saw all the birds had gotten into place and looked much less crowded which is what we hoped for.  The only snafu was Peaches, the chicken that hopped onto screening near the roof the other night, once again jumped onto the shelf area where all the electronics are.  Cindy scolded her as she put her back on the perch.  We hung some additional screen to block shelf access.  Unfortunately it also blocks the vision of the security dvr camera so there will be some further rearrangement necessary. After putting Peaches back in place the birds settled down and seemed to have a pleasant and less crowded night of rest. Today Cindy will be putting some final tweaks on the redesigned perch, including painting any unfinished wood and reconfiguring the area around it to maximize poop cleaning efficiency.

Yesterday I made a vet appointment for Nicki for next week.  She has had some masses on her belly for quite awhile.  A couple vets have looked at them in the past and their diagnosis was they were benign and if they aren’t causing Nicki any pain or problems it is best to leave them alone considering her age of 13 years.  Well the masses seem to keep getting larger and to me it seems like there are more side effects of them.  Nicki’s bark now is barely a whisper, it seems like she can’t get enough air in her lungs.  Also when she is laying down in an upright position she almost always is panting, again seeming to me like it is because lack of air.  My non-expert theory is these masses have gotten to the size where they are obstructing Nicki’s lungs from expanding.

So anyway, it has been nearly a year since a vet took a look at the masses.  I want to have her looked at again and express my concerns.  Based on what the vet says and the risk/reward formula in options for reducing or removing the masses we will decide what is the best path to follow.  If something can be done without putting Nicki at significant risk it makes sense to explore it.  My dad’s dog had a similar mass that was removed a year or so ago and it went well.  Maggie is a couple years younger however.

It’s hard to believe but I am a few days away from my 15th year anniversary at my job, meaning I also just crossed the 15 year Florida resident milestone.  To imagine a decade and a half has already passed seems impossible but a simple glance at a calendar confirms it’s validity.  I have never regretted my choice to relocate 1200 miles south of my Reading, PA roots.  Although life in Florida has not quite panned out the way I imagined it would be prior to the move, overall it has been a clear step up in my quality of life.  With that being said, I don’t know that Florida will be my final destination.  My cross country road trips have opened up my eyes to other areas of the country that may be a better fit down the road.  Any of those possibilities have a common thread, a scarcity of people.

I got out of work a little early on Friday, I put the time to good use.  After stopping at Sam’s to get a few bulk items I was still home before 5.  I immediately changed clothes and headed outside to get a jump start on the weekend chores.  I got all of the weeding done as Cindy was still finishing up mowing on the tractor. It gave me a nice mental head start on the weekend.

For the past week or two we have had a couple baby turtle doves living by the side of the house on the ground, they are a little larger than a parakeet.  At first when we saw them we assumed they fell out of a nest from the oak tree and were stuck on the ground. That theory changed when saw them sitting on top of a fence cross support and later saw them fly pretty capably short distances.  They seem pretty docile.  As long as I walk quietly I can pass them with only a couple feet leeway.

At one point over the weekend I saw the two baby birds on the ground flapping around, it almost looked like they were fighting.  As I got closer I noticed there was a third bird, an adult turtle dove who I assume is the mom.  The babies were just very excited and I assume mom was feeding them, explaining how they have survived on the ground. It was cute.

First thing Saturday morning Cindy and I worked on deworming the chickens.  Instead of trying to catch each one and shoot liquid down their throats we decided to inject the dewormer into blueberries which the chickens love.  For most of the birds it was pretty simple as they gobbled up the blueberry after which we set them loose in the yard.  Kristen and Pumpkin were the most challenging but eventually they downed the medicated berry as well.

After de-worming we picked up the dogs during a DD coffee run.  I hadn’t seen them in two weeks.  We kept them the rest of the weekend until I dropped them off this morning.

There was more coop tweaking on Saturday.  When we were cleaning the coop we noticed the floor near the automatic chicken door was quite wet.  I have had a problem with some water seeping down the wall of the shed where it meets up with the chicken run but I didn’t think it was that much.  When I built the run I filled in the small gap between the roof of the run and the side of the shed with a piece of plywood.  When I took a look at the wood it looked like it had developed a slight warp that resulted in a slightly downward tilt, directing any rainwater that fell on it against the shed wall.

I took my one leftover spare corrugated white plastic roof panel and cut it down so it would fit on top the area where the plywood resides.  I installed the piece at an angle sloping away from the shed to keep as much water away from the shed wall as possible.  I have to wait until the next good thunderstorm to see if my efforts were fruitful.

I also did some extensive yard maintenance on Saturday hopping on the tractor to mow down the back of the property.  Since we were in one of the dry spots during wet season I figured I better mow while the mowing was good.   Mowing the back is a slow process due to the height of the grass.  Certain spots require you to either go very slow or to back up over a second time to get the high stalked stuff. The canopy on the tractor makes the task so much better on a hot August day.  After I was finished mowing I still had some gas in my motivation gas tank.  I grabbed the weed whacker and started hacking away at the thick high grass that filled the ditch towards the back of the fenced in portion of the yard.  Getting through the stuff required max throttle and a gradual chopping strategy where you knock down the grass/weeds with multiple passes.  When it was all done the backyard matched the front of the property for one of the few times each year.

On Saturday night Cindy and I made our near weekly trip to the movie theater to see Fantastic Four. Both Cindy and I had read the bad reviews of the film ahead of time but we normally prefer to make our own judgements.  Once again we had issues with other theater patrons.  There were two presumably teenage girls that were about 3-4 seats down in the row behind us that had near continuous conversation going on.  It started doing the previews.  Cindy and I assumed they would have the common sense to shut up once the movie began.  Of course we were mistaken.  They got a couple looks from me and a lot more from Cindy, including a “Psshhht!” which did not appear to do anything.

When I weighed the options of getting up and making a scene versus simply moving to another section of the mostly empty theater the latter choice made more sense.  A couple young girls are not going to respond well to requests for common courtesy, a trait the majority of modern day youth are devoid of.  We relocated to the top left corner of the theater with nobody within spitting distance and had a much better experience.

I have had a long streak of having favorable reviews of every Marvel movie I have seen.  Even lesser known titles like Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy exceeded my expectations.  Well this latest Fantastic Four broke that streak.

To be honest the first 75% of the movie was ok, it kept my interest and portrayed an interesting background of how the FF 4 obtained their powers, something I did not know.  However once Dr. Doom emerged as the feature villain of the film things totally flew off the track.  The story all of a sudden got incredibly stupid, simplistic, and unimaginative.   It was like the writers walked off the film at this point and were replaced by 5th graders.  Dr Doom has unimaginable power, literally being able to just look at somebody and make them melt, or open cosmic black holes, yet somehow he winds up in a conventional hand to hand battle with Mr Fantastic, played by an actor no one cared about.  The ending of the film was just incredibly moronic.  It took what was possibly a B+ flick straight down into B- or even C+ territory, it was that dumb.

The movie also was animation feature film short, barely 90 minutes long.  Again it felt like they lopped out huge chunks of film towards the end and just threw whatever was left against the wall.  Hell it was so bad that even Stan Lee did not have an appearance in the movie.  Like true Marvel suckers we stayed till the end of the credits, hoping to at least catch something of interest.  Our reward for waiting was a blank screen and a closed curtain.  The movie certainly is not worth of spending movie theater dollars to see.  Sure rent it on Netflix but don’t expect to be impressed.

Sunday morning Cindy, who just got clearance to bike last week after her toe surgery, and I planned to get out on the road for a bike ride.  We were joined by Kerri whose son is going to be our chicken sitter during the road trip.  She lives close by and has just started road biking.  We decided to ride out to Ave Maria since it was on the way to Kerri’s place.

Prior to Sunday the longest ride Kerri did was about 3 miles, going all the way out to Ave Maria was about 25 miles for her and 30 miles for us so she was making a dramatic increase in mileage.  Kerri however is a good endurance athlete with several marathons under her belt.

I lead most of the ride keeping a pace that was around 16 mph on average, trying to account for the extra distance and Kerri’s lack of riding experience.  On the way back I picked up the speed a bit doing 17-18mph for a good portion of the distance and Kerri was able to hang.  By the time we got back to the entrance to her development both Cindy and I were pooped.  Neither of us had rode 30 miles in quite a long time.  The last 3 miles to the house were not enjoyable between a sore rear end and tired legs.

We still are having issues with chicken sleeping arrangements.  Saturday night we had to remove Peaches from the top of a barrier screen Cindy mounted in front of the electronics.  Every night all 11 birds try to jam on to the top perch area, despite there being three totally empty perches below.  As the birds continue to grow there is less and less space up top.  Cindy and I are considering yet another modification where we turn the big perch structure we made on it’s side so there is a large triangle of perching space all at the same height.  There are some design changes and proof of concept that need to be worked out but hopefully we can make it work.

I got my DJI quadcopter out for the first time in months to shoot some aerial video of the property.  Right after taking off for my first flight I saw something very odd on the horizon.  It was low, bright to the point where I could see it even behind clouds and appeared to be moving very slowly. I tried to position the copter so it was pointing in the direction of the object but on the video I can’t see what my eyes tracked.  My logical assumption is what I saw was a plane with a reflective exterior that was catching the high sun at just the right angle to reflect in my direction on the ground.  The copters higher vantage point may have erased that angle which is why I couldn’t see it when played back.

I burned through all three battery packs shooting my property from different perspectives.  I think the video turned out decent after a lot of cutting and trimming.  You do get a good aerial view of the new coop and chicken run from an overhead perspective.

Over the weekend I was watching several videos of what the first few hours of recruit basic training is like.  The drill instructors screaming repeatedly inches from the recruits face was disturbing for me and I wasn’t even there.  I don’t know for sure how I would react if I ever decided to enlist in the military but I presume it would not be good.  Sure you have to know going in what your role is going to be and that treating you like dirt is how they break you down to reshape you as a soldier.  I just wondered how many of those kids were thinking “What the fck did I get myself into…”

Sunday night Cindy and watched my current Netflix rental, McFarland, a movie about an unlikely cross country team coached by an unlikely coach in a very Hispanic town in California.  Even if you know nothing about cross country running I am confident you will find the film touching and inspirational.  It’s a solid A in my book.

So we are a few days away from the one year anniversary of my mom’s passing away.  To me, the 10th is really the day that mom left us as she was found unresponsive behind the wheel of her car only to be revived too late to save her brain.  The idea of mom feeling the heart attack coming on not being able to do anything about it is something that frustrates me and brings heavy feelings of sadness  and remorse.  I feel like somehow I should have been able to so something to prevent it, somehow.

Yesterday was my niece’s 11th birthday which seems beyond impossible. I clearly recall holding her in my arms when she was a tiny baby like it happened a couple months ago.  I talked to her briefly on the phone yesterday followed by a longer convo with my brother.  Unfortunately the reality of me living in Florida for the entire lives of my two nieces and  one nephew has meant that there just never has been much opportunity to cultivate the sort of uncle relationship that is plugged in or connected.  Another part of it is my inherent desire to just keep to myself, a trait I surely got from mom.

So yesterday on FB I posted about an odd issue I have been having off and on for maybe a couple weeks, a phantom cigarette smell.  Basically I get this sensation in my nose that is similar to what it feels like to emerge from a smoky room, a lingering faint smell.  At first I figured it was just something at my office I was smelling although it didn’t make sense since obviously there is no smoking allowed within 30 feet of the building.  I even went so far as to ask other co-workers if they smelled the same thing, nope.

So after mentioning it on FB I got some responses including some that have had the same sensation.Cindy found this link which I found both interesting and disturbing.  It describes the condition as “parosmia”.  When I read the details of it the possible causes ran a very wide spectrum from the minor (dry air) to the horrible (brain tumor, Alzheimers).   The link also had dozens of comments from other people that have experienced this same odd sensation.  There was even mention of it being a spiritual phenomenon called “Clairellience” where the smell is related to somebody from the spirit world trying to communicate with you.  I have to admit that it is odd this has popped as we are approaching the 1 year anniversary of my mom’s death. (a lifetime smoker).

So basically my take away from all of this was similar to how I treat most physical ailments, wait and see.  Hopefully it goes away just as it came.  In the meantime I will try to nail down anything different with my routine that could be a contributor to this weird problem.  I didn’t smell it when I woke up this morning but I can feel it ramping up again as I type.

Yesterday I went to my credit union and completed the process to open a DBA business account for the timing business.  It was maybe a 15-20 minute thing that was painless.  It now allows me to both accept and make payments under the business name which will remove a hurdle that was making things seem less professional.  I have been lucky to be able to get guidance on how to get things set up from my buddy John who also is an event timer.

I didn’t see any of the republican presidential debate but I did read about some of the highlights.  I have to admit, thanks to Donald Trump I am enjoying this run up to the election more so than I can ever recall before.  He has managed to add a professional wrestling type of aura to something that is normally dry and boring.  It’s entertaining, that is for sure.

This weekend shall contain the typical components of most of our weekends, some work, some rest, some exercise, and a movie.  We also will have the dogs at the house for the first time in a couple weekends which will add to the fun.

So I have found that potential clients for my race timing service may have an issue writing a check to an individual versus a business name.  I had avoided getting a business bank account until now because I made the assumption it would be a pain in the ass bridge that didn’t need to be crossed until things got rolling.  Well yesterday I found out I was wrong.

The type of account I would need is called a DBA (doing business as) account which allows me to accept payments under the business name.  Establishing this type of account has minimal requirements.  All I had to do was officially file a “Fictitious Name” on on a Florida state web site which costs $50.  Once the application is officially filed all I should need to do is take the form to a bank along with my drivers license. I was surprised it could be that simple.  Just like so many things, if you don’t dig below the surface you don’t get anywhere. (or learn anything)

The next thing I will need to do but not right away is get a LLC established which will allow me to create an invisible barrier between my personal and business assets. It’s a smart way to protect yourself.

So if you are part of the Facebook crowd you are familiar with what TBT means, Throw Back Thursday.  It has become an excuse for people to post old pictures of themselves which can be funny to varying degrees.  Well I thought I occasionally would use TBT as a tool to write about past chunks of my life.  Today’s chunk is the 16 months I spent as new/used car salesman at a Hyundai dealership in the late 80’s.

The job was my first that did not involve physical labor.  I was 20 or 21 years old and had been working at Weis Markets as a meat cutter for the last 2-3 years.  I thought it was odd that a car dealership was willing to hire a young kid with no sales experience but I later realized it was by design.  They were able to train/mold the new hire from scratch the way they wanted since the hire didn’t have any prior experience.

The job seemed incredibly exciting to a young dumb kid like me.  The sales manager and successful salesman talked of the six figure salaries that were within reach.  Of course that top end was weighted by the reality that your actual “salary” was $75 A WEEK.  So if you had a slow week and sold no vehicles you pocketed maybe 60 bucks.  I also got to wear fancy clothes to work instead of nasty garments that constantly had the stench of spoiled meat on them.  Finally, all salesman were also given a free loaner vehicle to drive which was “free”, as long as you sold 10 cars a month.  If you fell short of that goal you were charged for it.  I think it was either 100 or 200 bucks penalty. So of course all the focus up front in my naive mind was the highlights and not the potential pitfalls of the job.

The staff at the dealership had some of the most interesting collection of personalities I ever had been exposed to.  The general manger (who was fired a few months after I started) looked like he stepped right off the set of a soap opera.  He was classically handsome and smooth.  The sales manager, Jerry, was as slick as they came.  He knew every trick when it came to closing a deal and there was basically no line he would not cross in pursuit of making a sale.  Jerry was promoted to general manager. Jerry’s dad was the manager of the service department.

There were a couple other guys that were sales managers during my tenure, both of them lifetime car salesman.  Phil was a well dressed and likable Italian.  He was less aggressive than Jerry but still very polished in his TO skills. A TO was when you “turned over” a client that you could not close to the sales manager so he could take a shot at beating them into submission.

Butch who also was a lifetime car guy whose father owned a Ford dealership, (never quite knew why he was at a Hyundai joint) would sometimes fill in the closer role.  He looked like an average Joe with a big full beard.  His style was markedly different.  He talked to customers in a very quiet manner, a few ticks above a whisper.

The sales crew had a few memorable cast members on it as well.  Rich was a tall funny guy with nicely feathered hair. He was always cracking jokes and could make nearly anyone laugh.  He used his personality to his advantage as he was one of the top salesman at the dealership.  He always wore the best clothes and high end accessories.

Terry  was an overweight, classic car salesman who looked like he could be a cousin of Andy Reid.  He was a relatively mild mannered, low pressure type of salesman who really did not fit into the mold of what the sales managers wanted.  He never sold that many cars and his stint at Hyundai was probably less than 8 months.  He was the first person that ever took notice enough of my speech that he mentioned how I start running words together if I spoke too fast or was excited. It’s something I always knew I did to some degree but until Terry said something about it I never really focused on it much.  From that moment on I have always been very aware of it.

There was a young kid like me whose name is escaping me (we nicknamed him Eddie cause he looked like Eddie Munster) who seemed like a young Jerry, the slick sales manager.  He came from a boat dealership but easily slipped into the car sales genre since the skill set was basically the same.  He was Italian as well and dressed in a manner that looked appropriate for both the car dealership or the set of the Sopranos.

Jon was a skinny, middle aged, thick glasses wearing guy who looked more like a chemistry teacher than a car salesman.  He had a very quirky personality that was hard to figure out at times.  He was pretty successful during his brief tenure at the dealership but his personality also included an aspect of perpetual malcontent which expedited his departure.  He must have liked me because before he left he gave me all of his potential leads.

Bob was very interesting.  He was a cool dude in his late 20’s early 30’s that had an odd small patch of gray hair.  He was a high level, competitive skate boarder which always seemed like an odd fit to me with a car sales career.  He talked in a manner which seemed very 420.  He never seemed to get overly excited or angry.  I saw him show off some of his skateboard skills firsthand around the service garage, they were indeed impressive.

Then there was Mike, a red headed, motivated ball of fire.  He was almost always the top salesman each month and there was a reason, he was aggressive, relentless, and oppressively positive.   Quite often before he walked out on the lot to approach his “UP” he would declare to all of us how he was going to sell them a car.  More often than not he backed it up.

Mike was also one of the most polarizing salesman on the force, routinely stepping on the toes of the other salesman, cutting into the UP line or conveniently ignoring a “be back” (was in dealership before) customers work with another salesman and act like they were new.  If a customer worked with more than one salesman the commission was split between them.  If not the salesman gets it all.  Mike was one of those act first, apologize later type of people.  He figured if he got flagged for stealing someones b-back he could always just claim ignorance of the prior interaction with another salesman.  Mike had a few nervous ticks which included a head tilt coordinated with a half shoulder shrug.  When he was going in for the kill the ticks would increase.

About midway through my 16 months a decently attractive woman named Christy started whom was a slightly dialed down version of Mike.  An aggressive woman salesperson can do very well and she did just that.  She had a slight gap between her front teeth but her body was good enough that most men didn’t notice.

In the F&I office (finance and insurance) we had Todd who gave off an extremely polite and professional aura to anyone who first met him.  He used this to seduce customers into a false sense of comfort as he sold them loans packed full of profit bloating options like jacked finance rates, extended warranty packages and loan insurance.  All of these options were overpriced.  Anything he got over their actual cost to the dealer was what he got paid on.  It was funny watching him transform the second the customer walked out of the door where he would celebrate another “full boat” F&I deal which typically included a high five with the sales manager.

I was friendly with a few of the guys outside of work.  I used to play racquetball with the sales manager Jerry and F&I Todd.  Mike and I played a few intense games of one on one basketball followed by just hanging out from time to time.  Seeing him outside of the sales floor allowed me to get to know the non-prick side of him.

My sales style was pretty much in the middle.  I tried to follow the outline provided to me by the sales manager but I was never a slick talker, pressure applier, or adept liar.  I tried to instead focus on knowing the features of the car well and use that knowledge as a tool to educate potential customers.  After all at that time Hyundai was a brand new name so most people knew nothing about them.

Some of the tactics taught to me were pretty funny.  Whenever we listed used cars in the paper we never would include the price, instead there were directions to call for the low, low price.  When we got a call for the price we were supposed to make a lot of noise, bang on the desk for example, and then tell the customer that we were out in the service area.  You then tell them you can get the price as soon as you get back to your desk, all you need is their phone number to call them right back.  Just like that you have scored the persons phone number without them even realizing it.  From that point on they were in your lead book that you would go through on a regular basis, calling them to buy something until they either came in or bought somewhere else. There were a ton of little tricks like this we were instructed to use.

Sometimes things got really crazy.  I remember during one deal that did not involve me (one of Mike’s customers)a negotiation got very intense.  The customer said they had enough and got up to walk out the door.  As he approached the door the sales manager locked it, refusing to let the customer go until they worked out a deal.  Believe it or not they actually wound up getting the sale.

Early on in my car sales career I had some moderate success, letting friends and family know I was in the business brought in some sales, something I am sure the dealership counted on when they hired me.  I was having a good time.  Making a car sale was exciting, driving a new car for free was cool, and the cast of characters I was working with were stimulating.  Things started to get significantly less exciting as we entered the slow months of car sales.

There were days and even weeks where 95% of your day was spent staring out into the lot waiting for an “UP” (customer) to appear.  If you spent the entire day waiting and the one UP you got was someone just wasting time while the wife was shopping at K-mart it was incredibly frustrating.  I had quite a few of those no sales, salary only weeks which made you feel like an utter failure.

The times were tough for all the salesman as the newness of the Hyundai brand faded.  Pretty much every single sales person I listed earlier, except Christy, left the dealership before I did.  Turnover in the car sales business is pretty extreme.  By the time I left I was pretty beat down by months of meager sales and even more meager paychecks.  From there I moved on to an inside sales job for Donnelly Directory but that is a story for another TBT.

Equals few words.

A good portion of my evening last night was spent trying to address a work issue from home.  Thanks to the wonders of remote control these sort of issues can normally be handled from home instead of spending late hours in the office.  The issue was a challenging one to correct, the type that makes you feel proud afterward knowing there was nobody else that was going to figure it out.  Luckily after hours work is something rarely required at my job, a pretty rare situation in the IT industry.

It seems like the chickens are slowly working out their pecking order and living arrangements.  Although Cindy still goes out to check on them, most nights they are now able to all get up on the perch to their preferred sleeping spots without much squabbling.  By the time our road trip rolls around next month the chicks need to be good to go since we won’t be there to break up fights.

It seems like Lucy has clearly made a choice as far as her social group within the new chickens, the black ones.  Lucy is pretty much always with the black hens throughout the day and runs in formation with them.  Her light brown color sticks out like a sore thumb in the group. The four “babies” are normally their own little clique although most of the four are rather independent and will often venture out solo from time to time.

I slept like shit last night, I couldn’t tell you how many times I woke up.  Right around 4:30 I was almost ready to just pop out of bed in frustration but thankfully I was able to catch a few more minutes of Z’s before the alarm went off.