Will be curious to see. Is the doggie running at a manic pace in the actual text? The Zombies took over my computer and waterboarded me into updating to Explorer 10, and God knows what else - no matter that I didn't want it. I see little stinking changes everywhere. One is the icons all acting as if they are on CRACK. I guess THEY will just continue to update us out of existence. It's a shame. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the armpits of the people who force these things upon us.

Well, to the topic. You are HERE. As in the roadside maps with the dot showing your current location. You are here, to (oh - I see they've changed the spell check function too .... lovely) .... well, you are here to relax a bit reading about my exploits and perhaps see some new toys displayed. I had hoped you'd be here to develop a community of friends discussing airguns. But - I've given up on that dream of mine. There's a 98.9% refusal rate to that request of mine. Therefore; "We Blog".

Currently - I'm back at BPS (Barnes Pneumatic South) for those who may not have caught that abbreviation before). We had made a dash to BPN (North - New Windsor location of 33 years), for the purpose of coordinating with real estate persons. It proved to be disappointing. The new game in Real Estate is to badger you into underselling your home. Dramatically. If they can beat you down a bit, it makes their job soooo much easier. You see - the HOUSE is going to sell itself. Everything is placed on the Nationwide Multiple Listing. Every realtor in the country will have access to it. The world can search for your house. It takes time to SHOW homes. It takes time to deal with potential customers. Realtors would rather sell ten homes very cheap, then to sell two homes well. In addition - all realtors want to talk about in their sales push now - it how FAST they can get a contract on a home. In order to do that - it has to be listed dirt cheap.

But!!!! Don't they get paid by commission? Don't they get more for a bigger sale?? Don't they WANT MORE MONEY???? Actually, figure the difference in commission between a good and poor sale. The BULK of their commission is on the BULK of the sale. So - we'd have to pick numbers out off a hat. Let's try $130K house. At 6% they get $7,800 for a commission. But that's a "good" price for the owner. It will take the Realtor Six Weeks of hard work and appointments/showings to sell the house. Now - if the Realtor can beat the owner down to selling his house for $100k , well; THAT is a STEAL for the house. The house will sell itself in two days!!! At 6% they still get $6,000 for a commission! Now - decide ... do you want to do two days work for $6,000 , or six weeks of work for $7,800? And that's the game. They will write contracts for as many beat down priced homes as they have ballpoint pens.

And so, I get an appraisal back listing my 6 bedroom home as a 3 bedroom. My 3 1/2 bath home - becomes a 2 bath home. Purely accidental. You say - "do they think you are THAT dumb?" The question might better be - "Do they think you will REALLY go through the fine print?" My copper baseboard becomes radiators. My replacement windows become storm windows. And it goes on. Everything beats down the price a bit. Of course - you have to CATCH these things. You get the appraisal back - and ... gee ... it's far less then you'd hoped. "Oh ... you are disappointed, aren't you?" "Well, we pride ourselves on just being HONEST". "We could try to puff you up with unrealistic prices, but we're HONEST".

The OTHER gimmick is to find some nice place selling dirt cheap - and then use it as a "COMPARABLE". Comparable means a "Like Product" to your own. So - the house on a single lot is "C" to yours on a double lot. The home with NO barn/shop is "C" to yours with a 1,500 sq. ft building that has water, bathroom, heat, and A/C. Just an oversight. The fact that the cheap house is down on the end of town with all the HUD housing - "that doesn't matter". And it goes on and on. The goal is to make your place look like crap in your own eyes, and drag it down by comparing it to things which bare no actual resemblance to yours.

Wasn't that way before. But it's a brave new world. And - they can get enough simple beat downs to keep the phones ringing. So; how do you get a decent experience with a Realtor who will SELL your place? God only knows. But it's a great time waster as there are several days or weeks between each phase of the beat down. I'm not a professional Realtor or in the business - so I had to start out trusting and then use my character judgment and common sense to realize what was up.

While that was going on, I was cleaning up stuff up there. Other needs the property had, while I went through the beat down. We got tired of it and came back home until a new plan is clear.

We arrive here - extremely tired. It's a long drive. I blew out my shoulder before we left here last time. The forced trenching and digging during the monsoon. And - it just will NOT begin to heal. So I hope I didn't tear something. Of course - I have to keep using it - and using it hard during this project. Now - if I were doing some useless thing like jumping rope for exercise - I'd get absolutely RIPPED. But since I'm working myself to death - it doesn't count - I only get beaten down. Yesterday, when I'd get out of the truck at a gas station, my right knee would refuse to support me for three minutes. Today - my hips simply checked out.

Around midnight last, I hooked up the computer to review the e-mail. And, of course - I get one of the occasional mails which say the writer has been closely following me on the forum - and wonders how his gun is coming along. At this point, I usually stop and just stare at the computer screen until I burn out a patch of pixels right beside the other patches of burnt out pixels.

MOST of my amazingly patient clients realize that I am absolutely doing 215% of my maximum possible output. And that is WITH the bum back, the fibromyalgia, the migraines ..... and the Galloping Barbaric Dandruff. However; this is not universal. Some hope I sneak into the crates, at night; and work on their gun. I was FOUND on the Net as a ONE MAN show. The appeal of "Sole Authorship" was large. This is a term used to describe a craftsman who personally and singly produces all of his own work. He's the maker who engraves HIS OWN knives. He makes HIS OWN Damascus steel. He designs HIS OWN mechanisms. These usages are from the custom knife world (which is about a million times larger then the custom airgun field) - so our field doesn't really have it's own terms (unless I was omitted from the memo again - which happens).

So; the point being ... "Sole Authorship" is THE BOMB. That is until absolutely anything develops a snag. At this point; there is supposed to be a CORPORATE back-up solution to the problem. The "Alternate Team" is supposed to appear and clean up the spill. Now - on something like my health issues - THAT is a biggie. SOMEBODY better be fingered for the problem, and there BETTER be a solution. Since I don't smoke ... don't abuse ... am not a chronic gambler ... didn't get hurt hang gliding .... etc., etc., it's darned inconvenient to not have a convenient blame to nail to my hide. POOR GENES!!!! That MUST be it!!! Oh ... but those same genes produced the artist . DRAT!!!! Double DRAT DRAT!!!!

Now - on this move (which is DIRECTLY RELATED to the darned health issue) ... Corporate SHOULD have assembled the bean counters and egg heads to purchase a new property and liquidate the old. Contractors would have graded, laid pipe and conduit, poured concrete, hung steel, wired, plumbed, installed HVAC, finished out, torn down the previous set ups, crated the previous shops, SHIPPING would have loaded our fleet of SEMIs, and transported the crates to the new location. Teams would have been sent ahead where the front office had arranged half a motel for their usage during set up. The forklifts would be unloaded first. BEEP!!!!! BEEP!!!! BEEP!!!! BEEP!!!!! would be heard for two weeks. The prying loose of nails/staples and the RATTTTTTATTTTT of impact drivers would run non-stop to uncrate the shop equipment. Racks and Benches and Shelving and Cabinets would magically appear - and everything would be placed according to the diagrams on a dozen laptops. In the end, MAINTENANCE would clean up the mess and load six dumpsters of busted crates and plastic wrap and cardboard and boxes. (Note to Corporate - get a cardboard baler next time to recycle). This is the way some people feel the move SHOULD have been handled. It's logical. It's efficient. Instead ........................................................... I did it all .... with the help of those who were available.

We don't have all those teams described above. We have "me". Remember? The one old guy with the white beard - making the stuff that evidently several people find appealing. And, I HAVE made this move. And so; now I continue to arrange the shops and begin to run projects. I will find that much of the stuff is in an awkward place - or can't be found at all. It will be very frustrating to get it all to run anywhere near as smoothly as it did at the end of BPN. When the Porsche 911 came out .... it replaced the Porsche 356C. Development of the 356 covered quite a few years. And it covered the A, the B, and the C series. By the end of 356C production .... Porsche had a SWEET car. By the end of BPN, I'd had 33 years to arrange things into an extremely compact space. It was no where near what I really needed .... but it ran pretty well (as I just could not do many things there anymore - and the space had been co-opted to run the ones as needed). And so; it will be a while until I surpass the shops at BPN, in effeciency. However; it will only be hours until I get mail asking how fast the line is moving now.

But; we are here. And, we are stretching out the shoulder, and moving a bit slow today. Please try to put the whole mess into perspective. THANK YOU for the amazing patience of just about all of those waiting for my work. This brings you to date. You are HERE.

Gary

Patiently understood..........

Thank you Don.

I appreciate it.

I'll invite you over to deliver your Yukon.

Gary

You're like the proverbial one-man band.

Except, before you start playing you have to first build all the instruments, then write the music, then tune up the strings, then oil the valves, then polish up all the brass, then find a venue, then track down an audience, then...

At some point you actually get to play, which is what everyone comes to see.

It's true Sean.

That was the only way I found to "do my own stuff".

Otherwise. I join a band ... I could wind up playing "Puppy Love" for Donny every show for 40 years. To adoring fans.

Hi Gary,

I'm glad to be here with you and all your followers. It's being a long way and today you are even closer to the finish line than you were a year ago. Thanks for keeping us posted.

Julio

Don't lose sight of the light just yet! This tunnel is coming to an end and the shops will be running at ever increasing efficiency once BPN is closed out!

Gary,
I will continue to wait patiently, because I know it is worth it. I look forward to seeing the shop productive again, but I'm sure not as much as you do.
Make sure you take care of yourself and do the job right.
Scott

Thank You Scott,
I'm actually taking off today. Our triplet granddaughters are visiting, and we hit the beach - along with a few others haha.
Nice day.
Sooooo much has been done. Ill finish the rest as I work.
Thanks for your comment
Gary

Since I mentioned being off today, I had a real nice time. The world continued spinning - I was surprised. . Haha.

The beach is about 30 miles from home. It was pretty full today. It's within a beach community, but public. You should see the beach buggies people around the community drive. One looked like a miniture 32 Ford Roadster. Others were fancy golf style cart. The roadster had a gasoline engine - or propane - who knows.

The surf was rough today. Beat you up. And the seaweed was all chopped up and so the gulf wasn't at its best today. But the long line of vivid turquoise was there, out about 100 yards. Making this the "Emerald Coast".

Gary

Ahhh, a day at the beach....sounds idyllic, even with swimming trunks full of seaweed....

I'm headed south on 301, maybe I'll lay out a blanket...

Gary,

Another reason to stay where I am. I don't handle the BS very well. I'm looking at putting in a new office in my yard, a prefab, well made, and produced locally. I ask what the install cost would be for a 12 x 16 or 16 x 20 structure. Remember it's a prefab and takes about a week (5 days) to reassemble once its made in the shop. The one contractor they work with gave me an off the cuff price of $35K for the install (not including the structure). The structure cost $17 to $19K. I almost choked. I was talking with the owner of the company that makes the prefab when I got the news from the sales rep who called the contractor, and they could not believe it. They thought there was some kind of mistake, but there wasn't. I can see $10K for the install if they have to pour a slab and do some basic wiring, but really $35K. Doing the math, I would be paying well over $200 an hour for labor (assuming the crew consists of three people) once you deduct the cost of the slab. The cost per sq ft is $171 - $286 depending on size. Maybe if my home was valued in the million dollar range, that might seem OK, but its not even walking distance to the ballpark where the contractor is playing. Oh well, I guess I'm not have the preferred contractor do the install if I go with that prefab. I think I'm going to keep looking.

Keith

Hi Keith,

That's NOT a Pre-fab if they are talking about that kind of install.

I'm sure you have, BUT aren't you in one of those locations where they restrict all they can? Used to be you could put in a 12 by 12 with no foundation without signing over your life. But a 16 by 20 .... I'd think they are gonna go ballistic with that - like building another house. Especially if there is plumbing.

Guess you have thought of remodeling your garage and adding to that structure?

Hope it works out Keith. And goes EVEN QUICKER then mine!

hahaha

Gary

Gary,

Yep, you got that right. I can't even cut down a tree without permission, and I don't live in a area with a home owners association. That's just county and city. I would do the garage, but its too small for my needs and its full of stuff I cannot put elsewhere.

Keith