Research, training, airtime

Mama and I had a modicum of success with our research last night. I elected to do the research at work because it is more comfortable in many ways. We keep the room warmer than at the church; almost too warm.  I have two screens/monitors on my desktop for doing multiple parts of the research. I know how to work in Excel and Word more proficiently than in Numbers and Pages (Apple products). That was one of the challenges when we used my Mac Book at church. On my work computer, we were able to cover a lot of ground and see some good results from the searches we accomplished. With Numbers I was not able to figure out how to sort the spreadsheet to maximize our time by eliminating all the information we did not necessarily want to sift through. It was actually a fun evening. Like I stated earlier in this venture, Mama is very good at this. Last week I asked permission to come to the office after hours to do the research and that permission was happily granted. That makes using the set up I have at work even more comfortable.

Yesterday we were offered several dates for our One-on-one training. None of the original offerings appealed to me and Mama because they put us too far out in March – coordinating with my required travel, the kids visiting, Chase and Makaila’s baby being born, etc., etc., etc. I settled for one and replied to the request letting the admin scheduling the two-day sessions that we were anxious to get going. Our initial choice would have used four days of vacation – not what I had hoped for. We got a reply shortly after my response that let me know that the closest date, the one we had selected, was already taken. However, there had been a cancelation and an even closer date was open if we wanted it. The only caveat was that it was a Sunday and Monday. Mama and I thought on it, prayed on it and decided to take it. That said, we will fly to San Diego on Saturday, February 24^th and do our training the next two days. I have not received word when we are booked to come back to DFW but I requested the “red-eye” Monday evening, if available.

We also got a call from the company we are being trained by that we need to start our mentored training. That is a separate deal. We will get with a coach on a weekly basis for several weeks to be mentored on the investments we are discovering through our research. The only challenge there is that they want a guaranteed timeslot week upon week. Such a thing does not exist in our lives, so Mama and I are wrestling with how to pull that off. We have done so for FBI classes, but we were always able to rearrange those classes based on church activities and special conferences. We will need to have good internet access for each of those meetings, which also adds a level of difficulty to making the schedule work with Revival and Mission’s Conference coming over the next several weeks. Oh, well. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

So, our schedule is starting to get busy. Saturday, we have a Chinese New Year Dinner with our Chinese family. They already warned Mama that there may not be a lot of items that she would like. I am off Monday for President’s Day. That is a blessing. Tuesday is filled with several long meetings. Wednesday, I fly to Michigan to present a class. I will fly home Friday afternoon. Mama and I will fly out to San Diego some time Saturday and fly back some time Monday – hopefully. On top of all that we have Revival starting this Sunday, running through Wednesday. Of course, I will miss the Wednesday night service. I may have a twenty-four-hour break between flights - coming home from Michigan and flying out to San Diego.

Busy is good.

Friday’s mishap, Saturday’s revelation, Becky’s big win

I took the day off Friday. I was not feeling great, but I could have stayed at work – I just needed some time away. Mama did the same. There were not any young ladies at school that day, so Bro. Zach did not necessarily need her there to intervene. The weather forecast Saturday to be windy and very cold, so it was nice to have the extra time to work outside. We got a lot of little things done. One of those little things was to build a separate little area for the baby goats Lin and Alex were going to pick up at Trade Day’s. I carried some wire panels, helped shovel out the old goat manure, hay and dirt to tidy up the little metal building and drove a couple tee posts to stabilize the panel put in place to separate the little ones from our dwarfs. While Mama did some inside things, I worked on deepening a post hole for a portion of fence I am adding to the new enclosure we are setting up for our Dwarf Nubians. It was hard digging, but nothing I had not done before. After Mama rested a bit, she and I stretched out some field fencing on the pipe fence inside the new enclosure. By the time we had all that done I was in miserable pain.

Somewhere along the way, I did something that pulled a muscle in my chest and I felt like I was having a heart attack. The pain only intensified through the evening and night. I could not get comfortable anywhere, so I slept only about two hours – even though I had taken a strong muscle relaxer. I was finally able to lay on my stomach across the bed in the spare bedroom and sleep fitfully for those two hours. Saturday, I loaded up on analgesics and was able to cope but I was truly miserable. In order to make use of the time, I worked on our taxes. That turned out to be a very good use of the day because it took most of the day. That night, Mama and I went to the church, so we could work on our business and I would be available for the Men’s Prayer Meeting. For the first time we were able to find a house, do the research, run the numbers and feel like we actually accomplished what we were trained to do. That night I was able to sleep most of the night. Sunday morning, I was able to lead the singing, but by Sunday night, I was hurting too badly to lead the music through that service.

Grandma and Norman came over late Saturday afternoon. Norman is installing a set of propane logs for us in the fireplace. It will be nice to have that option to help heat the large room. There was a propane log set in the fireplace, but Mama and I thought it better that we buy a new set to start off with. Norman was able to get most of the fittings and attachments but had to stop short of getting it all done because of one little fitting. So, we’re almost there. Mama and I bought the propane by exchanging bottles at Walmart on our way to church Saturday evening. Mama is very excited to get the fireplace working – even if it is propane logs.

While Norman was working on the fireplace, Grandma talked with me for a few minutes about why she and Grandpa have been so mad at me and Mama. Mama was not surprised by what she said, but I was. She had to spell it out for me because as much as she insisted that “You know what you did.” I did not. As she explained it to me I thought, “You could not possibly be more wrong.”  But, I did not say it. At least we know now what has been festering.  I am not certain how to deal with it, but somehow the Lord will show us at some point. She asked for forgiveness because the had “ought against” me, and she certainly has my forgiveness, I just would like for the truth to be spoken and heard. Soon, maybe.

Rebekah called Mama Saturday to let her know that she had won first place in a chili cookoff. That was a surprise. I don’ t know whyt hat is hard to imagine – but she has the ribbon to prove it. Kudos Beck.

Internet, chickens and eggs

Last night proved the point to Mama and me that we need good internet service to make this business work. After another bumpy start, Mama and I figured out how to use the information provided to us in excel format to find the property records the lines of numbers were referring to. It took both of us to piece together the information and get it into the right search blocks on a variety of websites to make everything work, but we did. When we did, it was fun to look through a spreadsheet of 2500 listings and investigate only the ones we wanted. That investigation required a good deal of bandwidth to retrieve and display. Even thought we had a very a good internet connection, the pages were loading slowly. Doing those searches using my phone as a hot spot would not have worked at all. I had to teach Mama how to watch the progression through the spreadsheet as I scrolled through the listings. Once I showed her the way I watch the advancing lines of numbers she caught on quickly and we were able to advance much faster. When we had been at it for two hours, neither of us wanted to stop, but there were other demands on our time that evening, so we headed home. It was an encouraging night.

Before we set up to search for properties we went by the Chen house and dropped off the dog crates they will use to pick up a couple baby goats at Trade Day’s Saturday. They are very excited to use the new truck Alex bought. Any excuse will do to buy a good truck – especially if you live in Texas. Once we unloaded the crates we headed to the restaurant to deliver eggs. Mama did not want to drop the eggs off at the house because the eggs were not washed, and she did not feel that we could explain that to the grandma. Lin and Alex assured Mama that they did not mind the dirty eggs. Lin told us they had raised chickens when they lived in China, so they were aware of how to handle the eggs – dirty or not. That relieved Mama. It also explains why they are so fond of the farm-fresh eggs.

This weekend we will take them a couple old chickens. Alex has told us numerous times that old chickens make the best soup. He told me last night as we picked up the cage we use to deliver the old chickens to them that he has recently tried to order old chickens from their Chinese food supplier, but the supplier could only get young chickens for them. They were disappointed. Enter me and Mama. We let Alex and Lin know that we had six to eight older hens that needed to be taken out of the flock and we would be happy to deliver the birds to them two at a time at whatever interval was suitable to them. They are excited. Another win-win. The only favor I asked is that they would share some of the soup with me when they did make it. I remember the last time we took them an old hen, Alex bragged on how good the soup was. “Soup was very, very good” He told us. “Chicken was very tough, but good flavor. Old chickens have best flavor.” Giving them the birds is a benefit to us because Mama is going to order chicks in a few weeks. Culling the flock is a requisite to open room for new layers to grow up on our farm. Plus, it saves us feed.

This weekend is full. We will not get everything done that we have on our list, but we can try.

The yuck

When I got home last night, I was focused on getting the music set for next Sunday, I normally do that on Tuesday evening, but I had gotten caught up in our research and forgotten until it was too late. The feeding required was not anything out of the ordinary, so Mama headed out to feed and I stayed in my casual clothing and sat down at the computer; neither of us intending that I should get dressed in my farm clothing. I was finishing up on the music when Mama came back in and announced that one of the traps I keep set in the coop had caught a squirrel. So much for not getting changed. I took care of our destructive guest and, since the winds were calm, burned all the accumulated items we had in the burn barrel; mostly feed sacks. We were on our way to church about an hour later.

There were a lot of people out of church last night. Our area, like so many others is suffering from a flu epidemic. Fortunately, it is not as bad here locally as some of the more crowded areas near us, but the effects are still noticeable. I have to travel to upper Michigan later this month, so I will have to take some precautions in the airports I will be passing through and on the planes I will be sharing with a hundred people each flight. Potentially, in early March, Mama and I will also be traveling for training, but I suppose the exposure risk is not too much higher than going to Walmart, handling the shopping carts, queueing in at the register, giving and receiving cash. Unlike church where people will stay home if they are sick, people will go to Walmart to get necessities even if they know they are sick. I don’t blame them, I just hope I can avoid them.

There are several people around us who have been battling a minor illness for several weeks now. Mostly they are snotty noses and light coughs, but the individuals in question do not seem to be getting better. Victoria is one. Zach Burns is another. There are a couple more I can easily think of. So far Mama and I have not gotten anything that has hung onto us for that long. Although, Mama has been dealing with a runny nose for a bit. As far as being sick, last Sunday I felt awful. I stayed home and slept most of the day, but all the malaise seemed to pass by late that evening. I have felt fine until this morning. I do not feel particularly bad, but I do not feel good either. There is a tightness in my chest that normally is accompanied by a cough. I am not coughing, thankfully, but I am not breathing well either. I took some elderberry syrup and our concoction of oils that include Frankincense, Eucalyptus oil and honey. We’ll see how that does. Hopefully, I will not be adding my name to the list of the walking sick.

All of the computer issues I and several other people were having at work have now been corrected. I was not overly concerned because everything I was denied access to was available to some users within our system, just not to me. An issue I was having with a travel site we now have access to as a company was corrected this morning and I was able to book the afore mentioned flights. I am impressed by the ease of use of the site. It will take a load off of those of us who have to make flight arrangements on a routine basis but will still allow the accumulation of miles on favored airlines. A win-win. So, all of the electronically generated problems are now behind me…for the moment.

Who knows what will come up next – physically or electronically.

Trials, exploring, spending

Mama and I were disappointed by the last weather incident that wasn’t. There were predictions of ice and freezing rain, a slight chance of snow and the possibility that we would have the day off due to unsafe road conditions, but none of those things happened. It did rain last night – for about ten minutes. That was a disappointment as well. We desperately need rain. I was watching the claves in the field across the street from us kick up trails of dust as they played. I would expect to see that in July or August, but it is not the ground conditions I would expect in February. Oh, well. There is nothing I can do to change the situation, but I am starting to think that I should water my outdoor plants on a warm evening. They probably need another drink.

Yesterday at work was a difficult day – computer wise. I was asked to migrate some documents from one spot on our server to another folder on the server. I made the moves and was not able to open an of the documents I had moved. It was a bit frightening. I had spent days creating the PowerPoint presentations and accompanying Word documents and I was being told that the documents no longer functioned because of a directory issue. With IT help, some of the connectivity issues got resolved through the day but there are still lingering issues this morning. On the bright side, my boss, who really needed access to the documents, was able to get that access. These are not items I want to have to recreate, but I may have to none-the-less. It was not a fun time.

Mama and I continued to explore the websites we were given for our real estate business and quickly discovered that we need a more robust internet connection to operate effectively in most of them. We were working from home because of the weather conditions. In spite of the slow internet response, it was still two hours well spent but we are just now at the point of being able to ask the kinds of questions that will move us forward. I finished out our working time by continuing typing up the notes taken during training. I have not gotten through day one yet and have five pages of typed notes. I am finding it very helpful to go back over the notes, to expand where required, to spell out the formulas in words as well as numbers and to capture the thoughts behind the written notes. I do not know if we will ever refer back to these notes once we are grounded and succeeding in this business, but it helps to do a thorough review of what was presented. I am still amazed by how simple the formulas are.

While I was slaving away over the keyboard, Mama and Victoria got on Facebook and started watching the LuLa Roe lady introduce her ‘brand new” releases. I had already fussed at Mama a little because she made three separate purchased of clothing from as many sellers either Saturday or Sunday. Now she was begging to buy one of the newly released dresses. High neckline, black and purple, stretchy, bla, bla, bla. Even though I told her no, she was way over her limit for the year, much less the month, she reserved one to try on. Just to see if she would like it. For future reference, of course. I am just not sure how to stop the madness. But she did get a scare when we found out that our Discover card had been compromised at some point along our spending trail.

Unfortunately, that may not be enough to stop the spending madness.

Stumbling, goats

While at the training, one of the suggestions to help us get started was to schedule time on our calendars to do the research we need to do to make the investments required for this to be a successful enterprise. So, Mama and I put meeting notices on our calendars to set aside two hours every Monday and Thursday evening. Right now it is not a difficult decision because the hours are after dark; however, in a few short months, during those hours it will still be light outside. I am curious to see what type of dynamic that sets up for us. Anyway, we dutifully packaged up our stuff and headed to the church where we can get internet service.

This was our first opportunity to focus on what we have been taught. Sadly, this session was more of a stumble than a step. We packed up the computer, the manuals and several other items but I did not have the tablet of paper on which I took fourteen pages of notes while attending the training. That is where the bulk of the information we needed was captured. We defaulted to a company website we were supposed to be given access to. I had that information with me. That did not work. I suppose our information had not been entered into their system yet. Mama and I called and left a message with our contact there. So, to make the most of time, we studied a map of states to pick six to investigate, cross-referenced those with county websites for population and then selected three counties in each of those states to begin our searches. It was not a waste. It just was not what we had planned. You have to start somewhere, and we did manage to get a starting point. We stumbled a little, but we are up and going.

When we got home, I started typing the notes from the training. There are a little less than fourteen pages of handwritten notes but I believe, as I take the thoughts I wrote down there and expand them to capture the background and supporting information consolidated in those scribbles, I will have ten to twelve pages of typed notes. My goal is to remember the intent of what I wrote and expand enough on that thought to make it relevant when I read it long after I have forgotten the nuances of the training. I want to remember the context as much as I want to remember the content. I want to use those as a teaching platform to bring others into this business – after Mama and I have succeed.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, Mama went yesterday to get feed. We were at the point of running out, so her timing could not have been more opportune. Before we left for the church we took all the feed and distributed it to the barn, the coop, and the well house. Any overage is stacked in a specific location in the garage. So far, we have not had any miscreant critters disturb the feed in the garage. When I take feed to the Nubians – where we have Solomon – I throw the empty sack out to the goats, so they can play with it. Solomon likes to rub his scent on everything that enters his domain. It is hilarious to watch him almost do somersaults as he drives his head and face into the bag as it lays on the ground. All the females dutifully gather around and watch. When I take the bag out of his enclosure, he tries to block my escape. Mama hates that part. I have to show I am bigger and push him back, so he will relent. I have offered to eat him but so far Mama has resisted.

We are about to inherit two other goats. Our Chinese family is going to Trade Days this coming weekend to buy two goats for meat. We will raise the goats for them to whatever size they need. I am not sure how it will work out. We do not know what size goats they are buying – whether they will be tiny babies or fully-grown adults. We do not know how well they will integrate with our established herds. We do not know what breed of goat they are looking for; if they will grow to be larger than our Nubians and dominate the herd. Added to that dynamic, we should be having babies in both herds starting in early March.

This should be interesting.

Training and more training

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were all spent in training. Only on Saturday did Mama and I get out of the training before 5 pm. It was a lot of very valuable information. There was so much beyond the information. Mama and I got to meet and interact with some wonderful people. We did not share contact information with too many because it is often difficult to maintain those contacts, but there are a few that we met there that we have a high probability of seeing in the future as we pursue this business. With the last expensive failed business model I got involved with, I was careful to let Mama lead the way on this one; not to suggest a strategy going forward or any hint at purchasing one for the offered mentorship options. We just listened and learned. Now I can tell you with confidence whether or not I can make money on any real estate deal - flip, wholesale, retail or rental.

The formulas given and tested on were easy to understand, easy to use and based on those who attended the training who have a background in real estate, were conservative in all applications. In other words, if Mama and I stick to using the formulas we were taught, we will generally be on the money or better off that the calculations suggested we would be. How to calculate rent in one simple calculation. How much it will cost to sell a house. How much per square foot it will take to refurbish a house – regardless of the planed use of the dwelling. All those were taught to me and Mama and then practiced in groups over and over until we really got it. That has always been the problem with real estate investing. How much should you spend? How much do you stand to gain? How quickly will you realize that gain? What do you do with that money when you do sell for a profit? It was a comprehensive, well though out training.

Every other business I tried, most of which involved selling a product or enlisting others into some sort of downline hierarchy, I have had to do on my own. Mama, although she could have been a help, was never so inclined. I have always looked for a business that Mama and I could do together. Something that sparked her interest. Something she felt not only comfortable doing, but that she had the skills to do well. When it comes to sorting lists, creating lists and shopping for things on that list, she is a master. We may have been led to the business I wish I had found twenty years ago. We will know in a week or two if we have found it; but I believe we have.

Victoria kept the farm going for us since Mama and I were out of the house by about 6:20 every morning. The hotel where the training was held was in just south of the airport. Traffic on Thursday and Friday was terrible. Thankfully we had a pass for the express lanes. That alone saved us thirty to forty minutes on each of those two mornings. It saved us far more than that on the way home on those evenings. We had time each morning to get breakfast before training started. The first morning was at Chick-fil-A; go figure. On Friday morning we tried Jack-in-the Box. We were looking for a Whataburger but did not see one. That is how we defaulted to Jack-in-the-Box. It was a pleasant surprise. We enjoyed it so much on Friday that we went back on Saturday. If you have not tried it, you should.

Since we had never been there before I asked the big black fellow in line in front of us what he normally got. He said, “I am in here every morning for a Number 26.” That was good enough for me. And it really was good. I tried something different on Saturday morning and enjoyed it too. We were served lunch on Friday and Saturday at the hotel. I am not sure what it cost the company sponsoring the training, but having dealt with that sort of expense, I would guess it to be between n $15-20 a head – and there were about 140 people in attendance; between two and three thousand dollars each day. All done so the instructor could have the class gathered on time after lunch. I was impressed.

We start implementing our training today.