Will Winter Ever End?!
It seems as if the winter of 2012-13 is never going to end; Things were going well for a week or so there, but yesterday it started snowing again. We've got about 4" of the nasty white stuff so far, and more is on the way. As the temperature is actually fairly warm, this isn't the soft powdery stuff that easyily blows away - This is the heavy wet stuff that sticks to everything. Good for making snowmen I supposed, but not fun to drive in. Hopefully the majority of it will melt in a couple of days and there won't be any more coming to replace it.
My 2013 pre-season order arrived at the shop on Thursday, and I spent the better part of the afternoon and much of Friday unpacking it and checking it against the invoices. They didn't do too badly this year; they only screwed up a couple of things, but they're expensive things. Someone either got ahead of themselves and forgot to put the items on the pallet, or they've been lost in shipping. They'd be in two decent-sized boxes: one a carton full of air-filters worth close to $400, and the other a case of fuel-treatment worth about $120 or so. Replacements have been shipped, so hopefully I'll see them early next week.
Earlier in the week, parts had arrived for a Husqvarna snow-blower that I was repairing under warranty. Again, this causes much confusion (to which I still haven't gotten an answer) as to exactly which products in the Husqvarna Outdoor Products (H.O.P.) line I'm authorized to repair or not, as well as to exactly where I'm supposed to get the parts from. Anything that's in the Poulan (or Poulan-Pro) line is supposed to be covered for sure, but it seems that only Husqvarna parts that also translate to Poulan parts are covered. It's very confusing. In any case, all of the parts for the snow-blower did translate to Poulan parts, so I was able to get them. I was a little concerned as I entered the warranty claim into ServiceBench (I hate that system!) as it didn't exactly have a proper field for a Husqvarna snow-blower, but I guess what it did have was close enough because when I checked back two days later the claim had been approved. What bothers me with this relationship is that they (H.O.P.) doens't pay me directly; They pay me in vendor-credits with my supplier (Yetman's) which then gets credited to my account. I do enough business with Yetman's that this isn't really a problem, but I'd still prefer to have cash in my bank-account and just let me write Yetman's a cheque or pay by Credit-card for my orders.
In my last entry, I complained about a key not working. That was the enter key, which apparently cannot be put within > or < signs, because then the editor thinks you're entering an HTML tag. It seems to be cooperating today though, so I can only hope that it continues to do so.
I was supposed to have a customer come in yesterday just after Noon to pick up the Auto-Transporter for a U-Haul rental. We had near-blizzard conditions in the morning, so I had some doubts as to whether or not they'd actually make it in. I tried phoning them around 1:30pm, but just got dumped to voice-mail. At 3:00pm they were still showing up on the system, but when I checked again at 4pm I saw that the reservation was no longer there. I can only assume that they called Control and cancelled (or postponed) their reservation; That's all fine and dandy, but it would have been nice if someone had let me know about it!
Trixstir and I have been considering some major rennovations to the bowling alley. The lanes are in severe need of resurfacing or replacing, and so far the only company that has responded to our request for bids is Brunswick. Brunswick is pretty much THE name in Bowling, and their bid is to completely replace the old Maple lanes with a new synthetic surface. They would also redo the approaches, and replace the old "centrifugal" ball-return stands with modern ones that would eliminate the endless frustration of the returns jamming up. The new lanes would have a lifetime warranty, and the warranty is transferable should we ever decide to sell the place. There's a catch of course; A product of this quality doesn't come cheap - we're looking at an investment of just a little under $50k here... There are a number of financing options available, not the least of which is the federal small-business loan program which is what I used to buy the shop for Iron Pony.
The other option is to have the lanes re-sanded, patched, and re-polished. This is what the other companies would do (if they ever submit their bids) and we're expecting that to be in the $10k to $15k range. The issue there is that this has to be redone every few years. Personally, I think the wiser idea is to go with the all-new synthetic surface with the lifetime warranty. It comes back to the old idea of "Do it once, Do it Right, and Never have to Do It Again..." Also, the Maple lanes require extenive maintenance, whereas the synthetic lanes just need to be dusted off. Even though it's a much bigger initial outlay, I really think the artificial resurfacing is the way to go.
Brunswick is also offering a $1,500 discount on the ball-returns if we sign by the end of the month, as they found three "New Old Stock" returns that they could let us have. Saving $1,500 always sounds good to me! They do have a "Pending Financing Approval" clause that we can use, so we can lock in the pricing before it goes up, but still have an exit strategy should the financing fall through. If we don't hear anything from the other companies by Thursday, I suspect we'll sign the deal with Brunswick. This October is our 5-year anniversary with the lanes, and we have the Elks Provincial Bowling Tournament coming in October/November as well, so we really want this done before then. Business has been slowly improving, but I think that new lanes, new balls, new shoes, and a ball-return that doesn't constantly jam up will really make more people want to come out and play at our house!
I'm writing this entry from my desktop computer at the farm. This is the first time in months that I've actually been able to sit down at this computer and power it up; The desktop graphic is my "Summer" graphic, so my best guess is that the last time I booted this computer was before Elizabeth was born! Part of the problem was that the desk was so cluttered I couldn't even get to the computer, but I finally got that cleared up earlier this afternoon. The other problem is that this computer is well over 10 years old, so combined with our less-than-high-speed Satellite Internet connection it's sluggish to say the least. Hopefully someday (soon?) I'll be able to afford to upgrade it, but until then it will have to do. The shop has newer computers and a much faster ADSL connection, so I've done most of my postings from there, or the bowling alley on slow nights.
Now that I can actually get to this computer again, maybe I'll start updating this journal a little more often too. ;)
My 2013 pre-season order arrived at the shop on Thursday, and I spent the better part of the afternoon and much of Friday unpacking it and checking it against the invoices. They didn't do too badly this year; they only screwed up a couple of things, but they're expensive things. Someone either got ahead of themselves and forgot to put the items on the pallet, or they've been lost in shipping. They'd be in two decent-sized boxes: one a carton full of air-filters worth close to $400, and the other a case of fuel-treatment worth about $120 or so. Replacements have been shipped, so hopefully I'll see them early next week.
Earlier in the week, parts had arrived for a Husqvarna snow-blower that I was repairing under warranty. Again, this causes much confusion (to which I still haven't gotten an answer) as to exactly which products in the Husqvarna Outdoor Products (H.O.P.) line I'm authorized to repair or not, as well as to exactly where I'm supposed to get the parts from. Anything that's in the Poulan (or Poulan-Pro) line is supposed to be covered for sure, but it seems that only Husqvarna parts that also translate to Poulan parts are covered. It's very confusing. In any case, all of the parts for the snow-blower did translate to Poulan parts, so I was able to get them. I was a little concerned as I entered the warranty claim into ServiceBench (I hate that system!) as it didn't exactly have a proper field for a Husqvarna snow-blower, but I guess what it did have was close enough because when I checked back two days later the claim had been approved. What bothers me with this relationship is that they (H.O.P.) doens't pay me directly; They pay me in vendor-credits with my supplier (Yetman's) which then gets credited to my account. I do enough business with Yetman's that this isn't really a problem, but I'd still prefer to have cash in my bank-account and just let me write Yetman's a cheque or pay by Credit-card for my orders.
In my last entry, I complained about a key not working. That was the enter key, which apparently cannot be put within > or < signs, because then the editor thinks you're entering an HTML tag. It seems to be cooperating today though, so I can only hope that it continues to do so.
I was supposed to have a customer come in yesterday just after Noon to pick up the Auto-Transporter for a U-Haul rental. We had near-blizzard conditions in the morning, so I had some doubts as to whether or not they'd actually make it in. I tried phoning them around 1:30pm, but just got dumped to voice-mail. At 3:00pm they were still showing up on the system, but when I checked again at 4pm I saw that the reservation was no longer there. I can only assume that they called Control and cancelled (or postponed) their reservation; That's all fine and dandy, but it would have been nice if someone had let me know about it!
Trixstir and I have been considering some major rennovations to the bowling alley. The lanes are in severe need of resurfacing or replacing, and so far the only company that has responded to our request for bids is Brunswick. Brunswick is pretty much THE name in Bowling, and their bid is to completely replace the old Maple lanes with a new synthetic surface. They would also redo the approaches, and replace the old "centrifugal" ball-return stands with modern ones that would eliminate the endless frustration of the returns jamming up. The new lanes would have a lifetime warranty, and the warranty is transferable should we ever decide to sell the place. There's a catch of course; A product of this quality doesn't come cheap - we're looking at an investment of just a little under $50k here... There are a number of financing options available, not the least of which is the federal small-business loan program which is what I used to buy the shop for Iron Pony.
The other option is to have the lanes re-sanded, patched, and re-polished. This is what the other companies would do (if they ever submit their bids) and we're expecting that to be in the $10k to $15k range. The issue there is that this has to be redone every few years. Personally, I think the wiser idea is to go with the all-new synthetic surface with the lifetime warranty. It comes back to the old idea of "Do it once, Do it Right, and Never have to Do It Again..." Also, the Maple lanes require extenive maintenance, whereas the synthetic lanes just need to be dusted off. Even though it's a much bigger initial outlay, I really think the artificial resurfacing is the way to go.
Brunswick is also offering a $1,500 discount on the ball-returns if we sign by the end of the month, as they found three "New Old Stock" returns that they could let us have. Saving $1,500 always sounds good to me! They do have a "Pending Financing Approval" clause that we can use, so we can lock in the pricing before it goes up, but still have an exit strategy should the financing fall through. If we don't hear anything from the other companies by Thursday, I suspect we'll sign the deal with Brunswick. This October is our 5-year anniversary with the lanes, and we have the Elks Provincial Bowling Tournament coming in October/November as well, so we really want this done before then. Business has been slowly improving, but I think that new lanes, new balls, new shoes, and a ball-return that doesn't constantly jam up will really make more people want to come out and play at our house!
I'm writing this entry from my desktop computer at the farm. This is the first time in months that I've actually been able to sit down at this computer and power it up; The desktop graphic is my "Summer" graphic, so my best guess is that the last time I booted this computer was before Elizabeth was born! Part of the problem was that the desk was so cluttered I couldn't even get to the computer, but I finally got that cleared up earlier this afternoon. The other problem is that this computer is well over 10 years old, so combined with our less-than-high-speed Satellite Internet connection it's sluggish to say the least. Hopefully someday (soon?) I'll be able to afford to upgrade it, but until then it will have to do. The shop has newer computers and a much faster ADSL connection, so I've done most of my postings from there, or the bowling alley on slow nights.
Now that I can actually get to this computer again, maybe I'll start updating this journal a little more often too. ;)