Wondering Where To Begin……

Have you ever had such a daunting task ahead of you that you truly try to avoid it altogether? I just so happen to have such a task ahead of me. Looks like lady luck is on my side once again today because its raining. Which works for me because I’ve been fucking avoiding the task of cleaning out my storage unit for a couple years now. I can only imagine all of you OCD motherfuckers freaking out right now as you look at the picture. But, in all seriousness, its time to get it done, time to get out what we want, trash the trash, donate the old clothes and toys, and sell a few things I have been holding onto for years.

It’s time, I’ve been packratting this storage unit since 2000. Now that my daughter is married and moved out of our apartment we have a spare bedroom. So, we decided that the storage unit could go. I did the math the other day, $80.00 a month for 180 months is $14,400.00 that I’ve paid to store everything we didn’t want to throw away. That’s allot of fucking money! So, now we will weed through all of it and be done with the storage space. I’m actually kinda excited to see what I will find. I can only say I actually can account accurately for about 30% of the contents. Stuff like camping gear, holiday decorations, a waterbed, a dresser, an antique singer sewing machine, an electronic dart board, a $4,000.00 bowflex, and most of my Air Force stuff. I can’t even guess on anything else. Yes, I know its sad. Oh, and there’s a few boxes of Japanese antiques I told my ex I got rid of only because she wanted them. I’m interested in those boxes, got some stuff from older dynasties, 1700s and 1800s. This should be interesting, there’s stuff from this and my prior marriage, there’s just no telling what I will find.

I will be working on this the rest of the month as I need to be out by the 1st. For the things I will be selling or giving away I will offer it up here first I guess. It’s bigger stuff like the dart board for sure, but it would need to be picked up as I can no longer deliver. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out. My intentions are to get it cleaned out, then see where I’m at. Can’t start tomorrow, will be at the VA most of the day I guess, time for my next fluid draining and shot in my knee. This little ordeal usually fucks me up for a few days. I’m sure this isn’t the last post about the storage, I will update as I get into it. Maybe one more month won’t hurt…..

Daycare Offers Used Babies & Kids

Do You Need WiFi Range Extender?

eBay Listing

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=191184887492&alt=web

This Netgear Universal WiFi Range Extender 4 Port WiFi Adapter WN2000RPT-100NAS was purchased for me to use in my shop because I had complaints of weak WiFi. After a brief time of use it was determined that I did not need a signal range extender, I needed a new WiFi router. After replacing my WiFi router I am no longer in need of this practically brand new WiFi Range Extender so I am selling it on eBay for 1/3 of what was paid for it just 2 short months ago. While in use it worked flawlessly with zero complaints. So, I just wanted to take a moment and share a great deal with all of y’all. Follow the link below the picture for the listing and even more equipment details.

Thank y’all for taking time to check out this awesome deal and like always, thank you for visiting The Sting Of The Scorpion. It’s always a pleasure seeing y’all here!

The Extreme Mistaken Identity

I spend a fair share of time buying and selling miscellaneous things on Craigslist and on eBay. Much of the stuff I hunt for is what I call local meaning I can get there within 3 hours or so. I have buying and selling like this for years and tend to travel a bit to pick different items up. Rarely, if ever, do I have problems with anybody because the people I buy and sell with are doing the same thing I’m doing which is buying stuff to fix/repair and then resell more often than not. I try not to get myself into deals that are too far away because then that just becomes more expensive in the end.

This trip would lead me to Lake Charles Louisiana to pickup a 40s Ford pickup (pictured below, picture provided from Craigslist ad) which I thought would be a good truck to finish off my 4×4 bastardization truck using my restored 70s Bronco chassis (pictured at bottom). Anyway, I had spoken with an older gentleman (spoke with a heavy Cajun accent) twice about the truck and a price of $1100.00 cash was agreed on by both of us. He told me that his nephew would contact me with the address and a good time to meet. Yesterday, Thursday, ended up being the day. I pushed for Saturday or Sunday but the nephew was hell-bent it had to be when he said. So be it, right.

The trip from my house to Lake Charles is about 2 hours so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad of a trip during the week to make. I loaded up my truck and trailer and set off to Louisiana. I wasn’t familiar with the address I was given but I did know the area of town I was going. When I arrived at my destination (as said to be correct by my GPS and the GPS in my cellphone) I was presented with the house (pictured above). Thinking there was a mistake I reset my GPS. Apparently I was at the address I was given. Thinking there was a mistake I took a picture of it and sent it to my wife to let her know I was sent on a wild goose chase. She wasn’t happy with me to say the least and explained to me I needed to figure out what in the hell was going on.

After 20 or so attempts I was able to get ahold of the nephew who explained to me that I sounded like a white cop on the phone. He further explained that they didn’t do business with white cops. I was given the address to the abandoned house so I could be checked out by friends of his. When I asked if there was a problem with me being white he told me no as long as I had the cash and wasn’t a white cop. He told me he was sending his friends over to the house to check me out in person and if I checked out then they would escort me to his uncle’s house to pick up the truck. He informed me two of his friends would be there shortly and I was to give them the cash. Once they had the cash I would get a call that it was okay to follow his friends. I was warned I better be legit because this was the wrong place to be a white cop.

Once I hung up with him I decided to just leave. In my head I ran down the scenario and it ends up with me being robbed and killed, leaving me to rot in the abandon house. Even though I did have my twins (Desert Eagle .50AE x2) accompanying me on this little excursion I was not prepared to be in an ambush gunfight with an unknown number of people. I headed out shortly before sunset to return home. I will never know who showed up for the meet and greet last night. Tell you the truth I really don’t care. I haven’t heard from the man with the heavy Cajun accent or the nephew and I don’t suspect I will either. Sad, if you ask me, that this all played out the way it did. Perhaps my wife was right, the deal just was just too good to be true. Apparently so.

I have had some time to analyze this whole thing. Since I was troubled with heavy concern that allot of assumptions were made, inaccurately I might add, about me. Okay, they assumed one thing that was right, I am white. I won’t do them the same disservice by assuming I know what race my new friends are because I never met any of them in person. Accents, slang, and how someone talks are not tell signs of one’s race. Being I was bothered still by the events, I contacted the local sheriff’s department for that parish in Lake Charles where I was given a very hardy “yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll look into it when we get an officer freed up”. Who cares, right? No harm no foul, right? Sure, I guess so.

Now that this bullshit is over all I can think is how sweet that old beast would have looked when I go done with her. So, my hunt will continue and sooner or later I will get the body I was always looking for. I think what pisses me off the most is that I never would have guessed that junk sellers would be scamming people or trying to roll people for that cash. Makes re-think how I will do business in the future for sure. What a stupid reason to get killed. But, my optimist side has thought that perhaps I drove away from a fantastic deal and there was nothing to be worried about. My realist side says I made the right choice.

This Will Not Be A Good Day Indeed

I Wonder What They Are Selling

The Annual Neighborhood Yard Sale

No matter what I get involved in it always seems that I get asked to drag my smoker out and do what I do best. Some people cook, some people grill, but only the best can smoke. For those of y’all new to The Sting Of The Scorpion all I can do is recommend that your do a category search for “Smoking” and catch up. For everyone else this in just another day in my life. I’m not sure if I have ever posted pictures of the “other woman” (as it is called by my wife) so here she is. I have more smokers but this one is my oldest and my favorite. I built this trailer smoker back when I was in high school in the year 1985 based on a smaller project I had completed in shop class earlier that year. My smoker was built-in my parents garage using leftover metal from other projects. The trailer was bought at a yard sale and then modified and beefed up to make sure it was up to the task at hand. Since its conception and completion this smoker has been in my family ever since. When I joined the United States Air Force in 1988 I made sure this smoker went with me all over the planet, wherever I went, she went. Anyway, back to the present.

This past weekend was the annual neighborhood yard sale. Around 200 houses and businesses participate and it is generally a real big deal for this community. My baby sister happens to live here in this small country town southwest of Houston and they participate year after year because she invites all of the family and in-laws to participate. I always have two specific jobs, I smoke and I play cashier. This year was a little different because I actually brought some big things to sell like a leather living room set, dining room table with 8 chairs and three 2 foot leafs, two different Arachnid (brand) electronic dart boards that I had restored (circa 1982), an adult go-cart, washer & dryer, and an ass-load of clothes. When I pulled up at 5am with my trailer-load and smoker in tandem tow I was greeted by my parents, my sister, and some early morning “shoppers”. In the end, the only thing that made it to be sold in the yard sale was the clothes. I had made $8800.00 before it ever began. I unloaded the trailer onto 4 different pick-up trucks and I was basically done. I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy, but it was, and it made the rest of the day a breeze for me. Over all, selling 90% of the clothes brought in another $413.50 making my grand total for the day $9213.50 which wasn’t too shabby in my book. I got a whole lot more money like this than I would have seen using Craigslist. So, I had a great day. The rest of the clothes were given to my mother to donate to their local Goodwill.

I would like to discuss the people who came here to buy “other people’s junk” because the range at the yard sale was better than I could ever find at the mall. There are three types of people I saw that really stood out. There were the “lookers and fondlers” that basically had to see everything, did through everything, yet bought nothing. Then there were the “hagglers” who wanted to get a better deal than the best deal offered. These are my favorite because they have the most money to spend and they are trying to get as many deals as they can for their buck. Luckily, for me personally, I only had to drop off my price for one item which was the adult go-cart, I was asking $3500.00 since I paid $3500.00 for it. It was ran hard and I know it, but it was clean and well maintained, we settled on $3400.00 and the old man thought he got a bargain on the 5-year-old cart. I guess it is time to go buy me more toys for Christmas. The last group was the “in a hurry” people because they move at high speeds hoping one won’t see something or something will get missed. Are they scamming, probably not, but if something was overlooked they wouldn’t say anything in my opinion. But, they never haggle, just pay how much they owe, which is super easy for me. When I price something I always go high with it because I know people will want to work the price down, which is the game we play, but everything has a bottom dollar they won’t budge from.

Pictured above was load number two of the meat that was smoked, ribs, brisket, and sausage. Earlier I had smoked 80 sausage links and sold them for $3.00 a piece as sausage on a sticks. Since the meat was provided (donated) by my sister’s father in law, he wanted all proceeds to go to the “kitty” and divided up between the 6 families that were there, so we all got an extra $40.00 to boot plus I basically snacked on whatever I wanted all day long so I didn’t go hungry. In the end it was a good day, I went home with an empty trailer, a pocket full of cold hard cash, and a full belly. Anyway, that was my Saturday what did yours look like.

Is Everything Always For Sale?

Have you ever wondered that? Can you put a price on the things you own? Is there always someone who wants your things more than you? Are the things in your life for sale if the price is right even if you haven’t thought of it being for sale in the first place? Does money really talk. Is money really the defining answer to all questions? I thought that I was a rare breed since I am usually the one who sees something someone else owns and try to purchase or trade something for it. Not everyone operates like this I understand, but it has been my way of doing business for quite sometime now. Recently I wrote a post about rescuing a 40ish Chevrolet pick-up from a farm in BFE, Texas while checking things out with my mother-in-law after a recent death of a relative in her family. We had allot of fun going thru everything that looked like it hadn’t been touched in many, many years. Recently I got an e-mail from a man named James who lives in Lake Charles, LA and he explained that he really liked the old truck and could I e-mail him some more pictures of her if I had more. I had a couple more from different angles which were not the greatest in quality but I sent them to him anyways. The following day he asked if he could come to my house because he really wanted to see this truck in person and get some pictures of his own. Now, I “know” James a little bit, James has been to my house before because he bought some things from me in the past that were offered on Craigslist. I saw no harm in it and we arranged to meet at my house yesterday evening. It is rare when I actually know a reader of my blog. There are a few readers I actually know as human beings and not just a name or an e-mail. I had a list, a short list, of friends, family, associates, and other people who I sent an e-mail to when my old blog “died” so they could have the link to my new blog if they were in fact interested in me still. In the end, over the years, I have built upon a network of people who know people who know people who might just know some other people. Anyway, James happens to be one of those people that I have met and done business with before so I saw no harm in him coming out to see the old truck.

 

James arrived at about 6 pm, sat at my gate and gave me a call on my cell phone to announce his presence. I watched as James drove back to my shop to meet me. I found it very strange that he was pulling a trailer but figured he had something else going on somewhere. James doesn’t exactly jump out and exit a vehicle quickly. He is, if I had to guess, somewhere in his late seventies and isn’t able to move so quick anymore these days. It’s okay, he’s worth the wait. He finally made it out, waiving to my son and I as we were walking up to meet him. After some chit chat and some other talk we walked into the shop so he could see the truck. He convinced me to hook up to the trailer so we could pull it outside to take a closer look at it. He walked around that trailer an easy seven times, taking pictures, making some notes, and looked like he was in some real deep thought. He winds up standing back next to me, leans onto the bed of the truck, and tells me he has given it a great deal of thought, but he will take it. The he asks, “do we have a deal”? Deal? What deal? What did I miss? Was I making some kind of deal? Take what? He explained he came prepared with an offer and cash. He came to deal. He came to get this old truck. He wasn’t going to take no for and an answer. I don’t know what to think about this whole thing. I didn’t know I was selling the truck. Did I ever mention it might be for sale to anyone. No, I would remember wanting to sell this truck. What exactly just happened here? He pulls this roll of cash out of his shirt pocket and tells me that this is his offer. I was afraid to see how much it was, I didn’t want to insult James. He told me, “go ahead, count it, it’s all there”, so I opened it up and counted it, $8,500.00 in one hundred dollar bills. I asked where he got that figure since we never discussed a price because I never knew it was for sale. James told me he thinks it is a very fair price. He asked me to go ahead and pull up some more so we could unload it off my trailer and onto his. After I thought a minute, I shook his hand, and told him we had a deal. I told my son to get in the truck and pull it forward so we could roll it off the trailer. My son had a very puzzled look on his face but was happy to get to drive my truck, even if it was for only 40 feet. After we rolled the truck off my son pulled my truck out of the way and parked it by the side of the shop. James was already in his truck backing up with his trailer. We loaded it up, strapped her down, and James tells me he would like to go ahead and get on the road because it is getting late. Okay, goodbye James, have a safe trip home.

 

After he left my son asked where Mr.James was going with the truck. I told him that he had bought it and he is going home with it. I think my son was at a loss for words, in fact I know he was at a loss of words. While we were unhooking the trailer my wife was pulling up the driveway and just came back to where we were instead of parking in the driveway. She asked what was going on. She said she could swear she just passed a truck and trailer carrying my old truck. It’s true I told her, the man she saw hauling it away had just bought it. She asked, “it was for sale”? I told her that it wasn’t for sale until he whipped out a wad of cash and told me to help him load it onto his trailer. Now, she was at a loss for words. My son jumped in the car with her and rode back to the house while I finished up at the shop. I had to ask myself, “is everything always for sale with you”? Is it? I still don’t know the answer to that question and in fact I may never know the true answer to that question. Is there an answer? The way I look at it is this, I got the truck for free. All I had invested into the truck was the diesel I used in transporting it back to my house. I had estimated a bare minimum of $20k to have it fully restored in the fashion I had planned. So, in my mind I just saved myself a buttload of money. Granted, it was going to be a project that my son and I were going to do together and he probably would have ended up with it as his first car. But, there is still time to get a car to build for him if he wants. Who knows. I feel bad and good for selling it. I am still trying to wrap my head around the whole sell and when and where it became for sale. Strange how things work out, very strange. I finished up, locked up, and headed back to the house for dinner. I was surprised, the topic never came up while we were eating. It did, however, come up as we were laying in bed looking at the weather. She started the conversation by asking, “now what”? I finished it with the answer, “I don’t know”. That settled it for now, hopefully forever. She brought it up earlier this morning after I got out of the shower because she wanted to know when I put it up for sale. I just told her it wasn’t actually for sale and when Jame arrived with his trailer he was determined that he was taking the truck home with him, the end. I waited for some other comment about it but got nothing. I still wonder what I said or did that implied it was for sale since I don’t recall ever mentioning it. It’s a good thing in my opinion, everything happens for a reason. Now my other trailer is empty, ready to get something new, ready to sit empty, just ready.