In Like a Lamb...
The weather this month has certainly been up and down, but at least the few times that it did snow it also melted within a couple days. We had four inches of snow over the weekend, only to have it all melt within two days. I can live with that.
Things are getting busier at the shop; I finally completed my Pre-Season order from Briggs & Stratton, though I'm fretting somewhat over how much it's going to cost when the bill comes in June. I decided to take a leap of faith and bring in four generators, hoping that between my GST-rebate cheque and sales, I'll be able to cover the extra expense. Ideally, I'd sell them all before June, and keep my tax rebate for paying the future taxes. More and more machines are coming in to the shop as well, with promises of more to come yet! Right now it's a slow but steady ramp-up, but I think things are going to start getting crazy soon. It's probably going to hit the point where I'm really going to need some extra hands, but there's no way I can afford to hire anyone. I'm just going to have to work harder.
At the bowling alley, Trixstir and I spent the weekend learning how to clean the deep-fryer properly, and finally going through all of the fluorescent light fixtures to find out which ones had bad bulbs, and which ones actually had burned-out ballasts. Turns out that three of them have bad ballasts, and the rest were just bad tubes. I found this out by building a test-jig from a brand-new fixture so I knew if the tubes didn't light up, it wasn't due to a bad ballast. Also, this test-rig has the new electronic ballast which can fire single or dual tubes, so there was also no chance of a bad tube making a second tube also look bad. (With the old magnetic ballasts, if one tube failed they could both go out.)
I've just about got all of the 2011 data entered into the accounting software for the bowling alley, so we'll be able to get those taxes done shortly. Then we can file our personal taxes, and from there apply for a consolidation loan to get rid of our blasted credit-cards and their soul-crushing interest rates. I calculate that we're paying enough in interest every month to easily make the payments on a loan, so getting rid of these cards is the major goal for this year. While credit-cards are handy, and can save your butt in an emergency, they're too easy to abuse, and more trouble than they're really worth. I was much better off when I had to save my money when I wanted to buy something. :/
I just had an adult birthday-party here at the bowling alley; Adult as in they were all adults, not "Adult" as in Kinky... The nice thing about adult parties is that they tend to spend more money, particularly on booze. The downside is that their choice of music is often loud, and not particularly pleasing to my ear. Makes it hard to concentrate on anything, but it's nice to see folks having a good time and spending their money in my establishment. I'm in business to make money, and I make no apologies for that! ;) Still, it's nice to have some peace and quiet again now that they've left, and I can relax again.
The new roof is going on the farmhouse; They started yesterday, laying down the slats that the tin roof will be fastened to, and today they started laying down the tin itself. It will be dark by the time I get home of course, so I won't be able to see much of anything, but in the morning I hope to see a neatly installed new metal roof! Here's hoping they got it all done, and properly. The shop is next, and it needs it - it's been leaking badly the last few days as the snow we got over the weekend melted. With rain in the forecast, I need that new roof ASAP.
Things are getting busier at the shop; I finally completed my Pre-Season order from Briggs & Stratton, though I'm fretting somewhat over how much it's going to cost when the bill comes in June. I decided to take a leap of faith and bring in four generators, hoping that between my GST-rebate cheque and sales, I'll be able to cover the extra expense. Ideally, I'd sell them all before June, and keep my tax rebate for paying the future taxes. More and more machines are coming in to the shop as well, with promises of more to come yet! Right now it's a slow but steady ramp-up, but I think things are going to start getting crazy soon. It's probably going to hit the point where I'm really going to need some extra hands, but there's no way I can afford to hire anyone. I'm just going to have to work harder.
At the bowling alley, Trixstir and I spent the weekend learning how to clean the deep-fryer properly, and finally going through all of the fluorescent light fixtures to find out which ones had bad bulbs, and which ones actually had burned-out ballasts. Turns out that three of them have bad ballasts, and the rest were just bad tubes. I found this out by building a test-jig from a brand-new fixture so I knew if the tubes didn't light up, it wasn't due to a bad ballast. Also, this test-rig has the new electronic ballast which can fire single or dual tubes, so there was also no chance of a bad tube making a second tube also look bad. (With the old magnetic ballasts, if one tube failed they could both go out.)
I've just about got all of the 2011 data entered into the accounting software for the bowling alley, so we'll be able to get those taxes done shortly. Then we can file our personal taxes, and from there apply for a consolidation loan to get rid of our blasted credit-cards and their soul-crushing interest rates. I calculate that we're paying enough in interest every month to easily make the payments on a loan, so getting rid of these cards is the major goal for this year. While credit-cards are handy, and can save your butt in an emergency, they're too easy to abuse, and more trouble than they're really worth. I was much better off when I had to save my money when I wanted to buy something. :/
I just had an adult birthday-party here at the bowling alley; Adult as in they were all adults, not "Adult" as in Kinky... The nice thing about adult parties is that they tend to spend more money, particularly on booze. The downside is that their choice of music is often loud, and not particularly pleasing to my ear. Makes it hard to concentrate on anything, but it's nice to see folks having a good time and spending their money in my establishment. I'm in business to make money, and I make no apologies for that! ;) Still, it's nice to have some peace and quiet again now that they've left, and I can relax again.
The new roof is going on the farmhouse; They started yesterday, laying down the slats that the tin roof will be fastened to, and today they started laying down the tin itself. It will be dark by the time I get home of course, so I won't be able to see much of anything, but in the morning I hope to see a neatly installed new metal roof! Here's hoping they got it all done, and properly. The shop is next, and it needs it - it's been leaking badly the last few days as the snow we got over the weekend melted. With rain in the forecast, I need that new roof ASAP.