Saturday 5-15-10

Yes, I have been busy, and no, to any more garage sales. I have been very busy with the garage sale, but didn't make and money. I had this older gentleman at the last minute come in to see if I had any fishing equipment for sale. I said not really, but I do have some ocean rods and reels if that is of interest to him. He said yes that he has been pulling in some large river cat fish and would love a good big outfit. He came into the separate area of the garage where I have the big rods etc and started looking at one of my most expensive set ups. He took it outside and wanted to see all about it. He was very excited and thought it would be just the thing for what he wanted. He asked me what I wanted for the unit, and I gave my standard line when somebody wants something of mine that is not really for sale. Your the one that wants the outfit, what do you want to offer. He said will you take 15.00 for it. Since I only had about $500.00 in it I was very happy to accept a bid of $1,500.00 for it. He then noticed that there was a piece missing. I told him he could probably get that replaced for less than $50.00 and even less if he went to the Penn web site and got it directly. He then looked at me and said he was only bidding $15.00 on the entire thing. I looked at him and just shook my head. I asked him if he knew what a Penn real was worth. He had no idea. I had explained to him that it was made of bronze and would never rust or deteriorate. I also explained that you could use it to catch up to a 200 lb fish with no problem. He had looked at a tuna set up that I have and I explained about tuna and how big they got and how you had to have the special rod that he was looking at to really catch a big tuna. I told him the rod alone was over a grand. I guess he was just not into listening. The great thing was at the end he wanted to give me his name and if some how I found the missing piece, to give him a call. He then made me find a damn piece of paper and a pen to write his name down.

I then cleaned up the best that I could and headed over to the Essen House for that wonderful fish buffet. They were so busy that I couldn't even see Sharon for about a half an hour. Usually these people like to eat by 6pm but I guess with the day light savings they are starting to eat later in the day. Once Sharon got free we both went out to look at all the possibilities for the next expansion. When I lay awake at night I try to think of possible dimensions to make sure we will have enough room between the restaurant and the existing phase three to put in 24 more rooms and a nurses station. It has been so darn wet that I have not had a chance to pace it off all the way. We have to have at least 50 feet for the width of the building. We have an easy 54 with plenty of off sets. The dimension that I was worried about was the length. As it turns out, we can make it with ease. I stepped off 100 paces which should be somewhere in the 300 foot area. We only have to have 150 at the small end and 200 at the better dimension. We should have no problem. That is before we get the architect involve and see what the restrictions are on the type of build and tenants we will house.

We also looked to see what we can do with the ice cream parlor, and we think we have that figured out also. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to look all this over, now maybe I can fall back to sleep when I get up it then middle of the night.

Today was also very busy, up early to get a present for Mary L, it was her 29th. birthday again. As I said on the card, she is the hardest working lady we know. Took the card out to Mary and did some shopping for Sharon. At about three o'clock I went out to find I had a bad flat on my passenger side rear tire. That was the second flat in two weeks. Sharon reminded me we had to go to Indy tomorrow and I better get something done now. So we went to Kroger, got some air and headed to Discount Tire. I really like DT because even though these tires were on the Esclade, they would fix the tires for free because I'm a returning customer. That policy paid off for them today. As it turns out, the flat was because I wore right through the tire. Once they looked all the tires over they said I did need at least three and that if I purchased four now I could get two different discounts and as much off as $150.00 off four tires. So four tires are now on the Esclade. I'm now home writing to you guys and just about to say good night. We'll let you know how Cate and Kyle performed their dance. Good Night Tom