Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Interesting

Just got a email back from the shop up north. I can get the shop on a rent to own basis, which I like, if it does not work out in a year, I can leave without having to worry about the property shop?????? If it does work out, I would own it after say 5 years???? more to ponder??

Pondering

Been sitting on my deck having a few beers the last coupla days pondering the future. I am waiting on two emails, one to finalize my new shop and another from a guy in Kapuskasing that has a shop for sale.

I have wanted to move north for some years now, and this shop came up a couple of months back, but I thought, no I am not ready to go yet. This week, I started to think about just exactly what I am doing down here in the big city. It's been a battle this year trying to make any money in my shop for myself. The economy is going to get worse and therefore likely my situation will be worse. Would it be better in Northern Ontario, well I certainly would not have to make the money that I have to make here in the city. I could just work on my own and at my own pace. My overhead would be next to zilch. Park my fiver on the 4 acres of property, just outside Kap population 9500. Wife could get a Wally World job. I could concentrate on getting the business established and getting my name out. Can also hook up with the fleets that I work for all ready, as they transport through the area. Last winter I had 3 trucks towed down from that general area to my shop in the city at a cost of 3 grand plus per unit. No one in the area that does the line of work I am in. They would welcome having a guy like me in the area. Lots of moose hits, and of course bad weather accidents.

As I mentioned the economy is not getting any better. Our phones are real quiet even though I am shut down right now. It's like I am not missing anything. My buddy is here in the campground and is looking for work as a driver. I phoned around today to contacts that I have, and no one is hiring. So we got into the Job Bank on the net and browsed what's available, not much, and what is available for driver jobs was sub 17 bucks per hour. 1990 I made 15.50 per hour driving a roll off truck, 20 years later, its the same rate plus minus a buck or so, tell me whats wrong with that.

Shunt drivers, 9.75 to 14.25 in the city. Wow.

So for the most part, today I have a few things on my mind that are possibly life changing. The wife wants to go north, so I have that in my favor, the 14 year old, is hesitant as he has a ton of friends at school and such. My two grandkids are here in the city and I and the wife will miss them, as it is 12 hour drive to visit.

The other thing that I thought today, is seeing how I have a month off, I should load the camper and head north to see the general area around the shop. As I will be heading up that way anyhow, just not as far. Gotta wait for the email first though.

Stay tuned

Sunday, August 2, 2009



Bill sent me the pics and here they are. Pretty cool. Truck handles the weight no problem. We installed the deck and a underneath storage area for the ramps, a winch arm assembly, cut the frame and move back the fifth wheel. Bill did the design work and we worked closely with him to ensure the end result would be perfect due to the tight tolerances getting everything to fit nicely.