Where's Waldo (Ken)

It is a overcast, foggy, damp morning in the Emerald city.   The fog has come down to our level and is providing a cooling mist as Honey and I walk through the neighborhood on her morning outing.

I have the weekend off but it doesn't look like I have the weekend off.  I may not be at work but there is a ton of things that need to be done this Seafair weekend and none of them include any of the many activities taking place throughout the Seattle area.

I have 255 days left and while I do look forward to the possibilities of not getting up and going to work everyday, I am entering this stage of my life with some apprehension.  There are so many unanswered questions and as I have said before we are not the richest people in the world and neither of us has a pension plan from a governmental or union job so what we have saved over the years (thanks to my saint, Mia) is what we have to live on over the course of the next few years.  If we, like our parents, live into our 90's we may find ourselves with some monetary issues.

I have put out some feelers through a network of people I have worked with and vendors who I use.  Surprisingly there are a number of people who might be interested in using my experience for training or consulting with other companies.  I have to get more details, but I have made it clear I am not looking for a full time position but rather something to fill the monetary holes as I travel about the country seeking new adventures.  It would be great if we could travel to a specific location, consult and use our free time to investigate the region before moving on to a different destination.  I still have a lot of unanswered questions regarding this after employment employment but it may well be the answer to keeping our savings in our IRA's or 401's while still having some kind of income to supplement the Social Security Benefit.

Today is going to be a busy day.  Once I hit the publish tab I will be loading up my tools and taking off for the house we own that our daughter lives in.  With the help of our grandson, Zach, the plan is to prep and paint as much of the house as we can today and possibly tomorrow.  I went over there a week ago and prep one portion of the house and sprayed it to see what the results would be.  I was happily surprised and it came out well.  I instructed Zach how to use the sprayer but once we were done I realized that his idea of clean and mine are slightly different so I need to be there anytime he is spraying so I ensure the cleanup is good.

 As you can see he catches on really quickly and he was able to apply paint to the house in a very consistent manner. I suspect we will have great success today.

Work has been a little messed up.  Our department has been understaffed for sometime now and an employee who was on leave couldn't make a decisive choice between coming back or going to a dealer closer to home.  After making several attempts to conform to his requests, I finally gave up and made his leave permanent.  Of course, I did this on a weekend he was supposed to work and I had planned to take three days and spend them at the trailer in Gold Bar.  I went to work Friday to attend a managers meeting and then left and went to the house to work with Zach.  We left his house around noon and headed over to our place to pack up and leave for Gold Bar.  We arrived in Gold Bar in the mid-afternoon and set up camp and had dinner.  Since I couldn't get anyone else to work on short notice I got up early Saturday morning and headed into the shop.  On the way, I caught these flying over the highway.  It was the high point of my day.

The good news, I am off for the weekend.  Next week I have staff on vacation but I must still try to find a replacement for the young man who left.  Just another day in the life of a manager.  I hope to get staffed so that I can work on a mountain of things that I have let slide for the past couple of years.  We need to take a physical inventory of the parts department in November and I want the place ready so it doesn't take us two days to do it.  To do that, I need time to work with the inventory, spend time in the bins and make sure all the paperwork is straight.  We have parts that say they are there but aren't and some that show no indication of being there but yet they are.  It has been almost two years since our last inventory and we moved the department twice during that time.  I am certain we have lost stuff and with all the stress in the department we have no doubt failed to do some of the tasks that are required to keep a straight, organized and accurate inventory.

I must pack up my tools, stop by Lowe's and head over to the house.  Hope everyone has a great day.