Couples Jobs

As you may recall I have been doing the interviewing for our company for two sites that need management teams here in New Jersey. We found one couple for the Maple Shade location and they will start their training soon. I am still interviewing for our site but the flow of applicants has slowed down so we're exploring some new sites where we can advertise our opening. One site, that our HR director found is for WorkingCouples. It's a great site for couples who are looking for jobs where they can work together. The jobs range from hotel/motel management, self storage jobs such as ours, workamping jobs, property caretakers, etc. Couples can post their resumes, search by state or occupation and there is also a forum where they can discuss a variety of issues. What a neat site this is !

Another site I had recommended to our HR director was the Caretaker Gazette. This is similar to the other site but it seems to be for more upscale jobs. I used to subscribe to this a few years back but traveling to an island to housesit seemed to slip out of the realm of possibility when we bought our RV. This site and magazine has some unique offerings and many of them are in exotic locations. I think jobs such as these would be neat if I were young and just starting out without any family responsibilities or geographic limitations. How better to see the world than to hopscotch across the globe housesitting or working for short periods of time.

Meanwhile, in the land of Rahway....work continues to be busy. I tried to get some outdoor maintenance done today before the rain moves in. Once the wind picked up, I moved inside and started to spackle the dings and dents in the office walls. Tomorrow I'm going to go to Home Depot and pick up some paint so I can touch up these areas. Bit by bit we are getting things accomplished around here. Although it feels good to be making headway and getting the property in good shape for the new managers, we are getting antsy to go to a new location. Hopefully our new outreach will turn up some good candidates for interviews.

Crayola

On Sunday Linda's brother and sister in law came down, as we were finishing up work, and we went out to dinner at Shannon Rose....an Irish pub in nearby Woodbridge. We told them as we entered that we were interested in watching the Eagles football game and after checking their TV chart, we were seated right under a big flat screen so we could watch the game while we ate. We had a great time and as usual the food was awesome. It was fun to chat and hang out with Roy and Kathie for a while.

Today we went to Easton, Pa to the Crayola factory. It was a fun time ! The picture at the top of this post is of the world's largest crayon. The World’s Largest Crayon is located at The Crayola Store. It took 123,000 blue crayons to make this 1500–pound one–of–a–kind crayon, which is 15 feet long and 16 inches in circumference. A sign posted near the crayon states that this crayon could draw a continuous line for 10 miles....Wow !! The crayons to make it were donated by children from all over the country in an effort to beat the previous record for the world's largest crayon.

On the 3rd and 4th floor of the building, where the Crayola factory is located, is the National Canal Museum. The last time I was here this part was pretty boring. I recall pictures on the walls but boy has it changed. Now, when you enter you are given your own barge that you have to navigate through a series of locks to get to the end of your journey. What a great interactive way to learn ! The whole canal museum was really neat...you get to learn about locks, pulleys, building systems, etc. I enjoyed this part of the day as much as the Crayola factory. The canal museum and the Crayola factory are both part of the entry fee. After we finished with the museum we went to the Crayola store which is always fun. There are always neat things to see. This is the 50th anniversary of the 64 pack of crayons with the built in sharpener so they have a commemorative tin. Remember what a big deal it was when the boxes came out with their own sharpener...cool, huh ? I learned two neat things about the labels on crayons. First, that up until 1943 the crayons were rolled by hand by people in their own homes. There was a picture of a woman, sitting rolling crayons at her kitchen table....a bucket of glue on one hand and a bin of crayons at the other hand. These "employees" weren't known by their names but they were known by the color they rolled..."The Red Farm", etc. Second thing I learned is that the "glue" used to put the label on the crayons is edible....it's cornstarch and water. So if you find your grandkids licking the labels on the crayon...not too worry.

One of my favorite items, on display at the Crayola factory, is Mister Rogers' sweater that he wore when he made the 1 billionth crayon. That crayon, as part of a Crayola promotion, was won by a Colorado grandmother but she sold it back to Crayola for a $100,000 savings bond. The crayon is on display there too.

What a great place to take the youngsters and the "young at heart". Take yourself back to a simpler time in your life when all you had to worry about was what color to use in your coloring book. We certainly enjoyed our "day of play"....

Detour

Well, Linda and I were supposed to have today and tomorrow off from work but when the phone rang at 8:55 this morning we knew it wasn't going to be good. One of the assistants called off so Linda is at work since the other assistant is fairly new and doesn't know how to do the office work very well. I'm working around the rig, silconing the gaskets, etc., made a trip to Sam's Club and just might squeeze in a nap this afternoon. :) Good thing we didn't make plans for today.....our schedules have been altered anyway due to the one assistant taking classes on the weekend so is even a little more annoying when she calls off so Linda gets one less day off this week. Oh well....that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Weather is cool and crisp today but bright sunshine and I sure like 53 degrees as opposed to 39 and rainy. Marked improvement over the last couple days. This morning on Good Morning America we watched Ingrid Michaelson perform a song from her new album. Listen to some of her stuff...I love it cause it's quirky, fresh and upbeat. Good stuff !!

Boomer and I are off to Home Depot to see if we can find something to put over the water hose to give it some protection. It is taking a real beating with these huge trucks driving over it. It has already sliced up the outer casing in several spots and I've had to put gorilla tape on it to protect it PLUS we unhook the hose every morning and reconnect when we come home at night. Would be nice to not have to do that...will see how expensive a hose "bridge" is and if a place like Home Depot or Lowes has them. If anybody has any ideas on where to get them or how to rig up a home-made one, I'm up for suggestions. We have a heavy duty commercial water hose but with trucks like large wrecker roll-offs and large Penske trucks driving over it, it's like driving over a spaghetti strand....turns to mush in a hurry !

A Year Ago....

In a nostalgic mood, I thought it would be fun to see what Linda and I had been up to this time last year. I went back through my posts from October 2008 (they are under "older posts" in bottom right corner of the blog). We were staying in the campground in Coffeyville, working at Amazon. The Christmas season was gearing up but not at a fever pitch until after Thanksgiving. The weather was awesome which is more than I can say for this year's weather. It was in the 60's most days....we would have our door open during the day and sometimes our neighbor, Lindig would stop over and say Hi...we miss having her next door. We met so many great people at Amazon and many of the friends we made there are back there this year working. We heard from our friend Carolyn that our supervisors were asking about us and wondering if we were coming back this year. Sorry to say we're not returning but all of the folks at Amazon are in our thoughts. I actually went to Walmart in search of the insoles that I discovered in Coffeyville that helped with my aching feet as we tried to get acclimated to the 16 miles we walked everyday on our shift picking orders. Couldn't find them in the Walmart here.....might have to put in a special order with our friends out in Kansas to buy me some and ship them to me...Amazon style. Don't think it's something that Amazon stocks but maybe I should check....you never know what you'll find down the aisles at the world's greatest on-line store. I loved going in each week, as we got closer to Christmas and discovering what new items were on the shelves. Boxed sets of DVD's, cool cookbooks, nifty games, special edition movies, etc. One book that I picked several of last year....Where the Wild Things Are..has now been made into a movie and looks really cute. I think of Amazon when I see the movie trailer on TV. Another big deal last year....Harry Potter's last book was set to be released and there were top secret shifts to pack the leather bound copies to get them ready for shipping. Hmmm....in a sense it seems like a long time ago and in another it seems like yesterday. It's certainly a time that Linda and I cherish....the time that great bonds of friendship were formed that will last us a lifetime.

Lousy in Rahway....

The thermometer continues to drop....it is now 39 degrees outside. Ick !! I hope we don't wake up to snow....I'm not ready to cross from fall into full-blown winter just yet. It's kind of depressing and they are saying we have several more days of this.

In the world of work, we are kind of climbing on top of the workload here. After changing 70 fluorescent bulbs, the place is well lit and looking good although it seems that changing them could be a daily task.....I keep finding burnt out fixtures each day.

What would you guess are some of the items that I find on the floor of units when I clean them up after someone has moved out ? Screws are a biggie.....can't figure out why we, as a people, carry around lots of screws and end up losing them. I've met alot of people who's screws are loose but haven't quite fallen out yet. These are a dangerous item for me to find, especially when they are in the parking lot. But get what else I find alot of ? Q-tips.....strewn on the floor after someone has moved out. Who stores Q-tips ? What is so valuable about a pack of q-tips that it's worth storing ? Or why don't people put them in containers so they don't wind up on the floor. Makes me chuckle every time I find them in a unit. I also hope and pray that they are new ones I'm finding and that someone isn't warped enough to carry around used ones cause by the time they've rolled around on a dusty floor, they are dirty so who knows........
People, go to the Dollar Store and find yourself a little container to put them in so I don't have to sweep them up off the floor.

Energy Everywhere.....

As I mentioned in last night's post, Linda and I went for a drive with my mom so she could show us some things around the area. Turns out that there is a huge windmill project underway just over the hill from my mom's place. They are putting up something like 65 windmills on the ridge above route 6. How exciting !! Linda and I love seeing the windmills as we drive across the mid-west and now it will be in our own state of Pennsylvania (and our backyard). Mom said that they may actually add another 35 to this first batch. The power generated from these windmills is supposed to be enough to provide all the power needed for Tioga and Bradford county.

The other thing that Mom wanted to show us were the Marcellus Shale rigs all set up....extracting natural gas from the ground. This is a really big deal for Tioga and Bradford county and many people will become really wealthy as a result of it. Initially geologists didn't think that Marcellus Shale was going to yield great amounts of gas but they were wrong. Due to a new technology of vertical drilling and fracturing the rock, they are able to extract the gas AND it is yielding high volumes of gas. This is wonderful news for the northeast where highly populated cities will benefit. If you'd like to read more on this fascinating technology and promising energy source, go here. You'll find some great info and maps there. I'd love to see one of these wells close enough to my mom that she'd either get royalties from drilling nearby or money from the pipeline right of way.

I always knew there was something in the water.....Growing up on our farm next door, I always thought it odd that our tap water was flammable....yep, that's right you could light it on fire. First thing in the morning my mom could hold a match to the end of the faucet and the first time she'd turn it on, the water would ignite. Weird, huh ! A great party trick to impress your friends.

Yumlicious !

We had a great time on our days off. We drove up to Pennsylvania and our first stop was Penn Collegewhere I worked for the last 18 years,until we went on the road in 2007. I visited with some of the great folks that I worked with and got to see all of the construction underway on campus. Wow, there is a lot going on there. I had to take a couple different routes to get to my old office as they have the opposite end of the building tore up.

While I was on campus visiting, Linda walked up to her son's house (a few streets over from the college) and spent time with her daughter-in-law and grandkids. She had a good time playing with them and finding out what they've been up to.

We left Williamsport and drove north to Mansfield, where my mom lives. There was a drastic difference in the coloration of fall foliage between the two towns. There are some large mountains (at least for the east coast)and a valley that seperates the two regions. When I used to have a house in Blossburg (a small town between Williamsport and Mansfield)and would drive to work at the college, it was not unusual to encounter two or three different types of weather in the 50 mile drive. Temperatures could vary by as much as 15 degrees. It could be calm in Williamsport but as soon as you drive up and over the mountain, through "steam valley", you could run into a snow storm or perhaps ice.

This temperature difference has a big impact on the fall foliage. The trees closer to Mansfield were on their way out....starting to lose leaves and the best colors were gone. In the Williamsport area, they are still about two weeks or so from seeing maximum colors. Odd, huh ? In any event it was a pretty drive and one that I never grow tired of. After traveling to other regions of the country and exploring the unique topographies that each region has to offer, I still fall in love with the beauty and versatility that Pennsylvania has to offer.

We arrived at my mom's house about 3:30. She was really surprised to see us and was just finishing up a batch of peanut butter cups when we got there. She is in the thick of candy making.....It's craft show season and some of the busiest shows are coming up in the next month and she is hard at work every day creating yummy treats that my brother takes for his display. He has bees, from which he creates all sorts of honey products and he also taps lots of maple trees and makes maple syrup products. My 84 year old mother is licensed to make all these wonderful items out of her house and when we visit sometimes we have to play "guinea pig" for her new treats....man, it's a hard job but someone has to do it. Being the perfectionist that she is, there is a always a dish of "rejects" and guess who got to bring them home. Yep, twas us....pretzel bark, peppermint patties covered in dark chocolate, pretzel rods, peanut brittle and fudge. The drawer we keep our "sweet stash" in is now filled to the brim with lots of goodies. She cooked a yummy supper for us of brussel sprouts from her garden, along with other veggie dishes. After supper we made her play tour guide and go with us to see some exciting things going on in the area. I'll talk about that more in tomorrow's post. When we came back from our sightseeing jaunt, we had a slice of a pumpkin cake that she had made....it was so moist and yummy ! Linda loves to look at all the magazines my mom receives and this time she found a recipe for pierogie lasagna that sounds really good that we want to try. We have two bags of pierogies in the freezer that are just dying to be turned into this new concoction.

Left moms house this morning and made our way back to New Jersey, stopping to have lunch with a friend of mine. Arrived home a little before 6:00....all settled in with our treats and ready to go back to work tomorrow.

Caught Up....

We've been pretty crazy this week at work and we're so exhausted when we get home that we watch a little TV, eat supper and head off to bed. Exciting life, eh ? Today was the first time that we've had to work a Sunday and we liked it. It's a short day...open 9 - 3. Nice to have a short day and still see sunlight when you get done with work. We watched the race and I spent alot of time catching up with our friend's blogs (the links are all in the lower right corner of our blog). They are all in different corners of the country, it seems, but we feel like we stay up to date with their lives when we read their blogs.

Remember when I mentioned in a previous post about the young man who was killed two weeks ago, on the highway out front of our store ? Well, it turns out that "texting" may have been a big contributor to his wreck. Linda was talking to the local police officer who reviewed the video footage from our cameras on the accident and texting to or from his phone had occurred within the last minute before he wrecked. How sad....we are hearing more and more, in the news, of how texting has been involved in so many deadly mass transit crashes that have claimed innocent lives. It's certainly a big problem and one that will only continue to grow as more and more people use their cell phones while driving. People...please be careful when you are behind the wheel. There are other people on the road with you !

We have the next two days off....might head up home to visit my mom. Will be nice to get out and about, take in the fall foliage and see the sights between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I bet the leaves at the PA Grand Canyon are getting really pretty. Hmmm.....

Pickin' and Pluckin'

We had a fun day today. We drove to northeast PA and went to the Lehigh Valley zoo. I didn't expect it to be quite so rural. Wow, I think the goats that we saw there, at the zoo, were the ones who mapped out the roads going in and out of the zoo. To get to the entrance to the zoo, you drive down route 309 which is a winding country road and not RV friendly at all. We had to go over a covered bridge, with a clearance of 8'2" and Bertha is a stout 7'9"....whew..I held my breath going through that thing. Plus there was a big dip going onto and off of the bridge. Ha...thought that was the worst of things but then the road to get to the zoo was only about as wide as our truck and wound up the side of the mountain a couple of miles before we got to the zoo itself.

The zoo was fun...we saw penquins, camels, otters, a zebra, birds, goats, emus and ostriches. There was a big enclosure for lorakeets where you could go in and if you bought a cup of nectar, the birds would come and sit on you while drinking the nectar. I bought a cup, went in and turned into a roost for several birds as they flocked to get some of the nectar. A couple chewed on my hair, hat and collar of my coat while one drank from the cup. They are very noisy birds but very, very colorful. We took some pictures and I downloaded them to our new computer but I can't find what folder they went in. If I find them, I'll put them on here.

As we left the zoo, you exit through the animal preserve which is part of the this rural property. We saw an elk herd and a lot of bison. Then we rounded a curve and the road seemed to disappear in front of us, giving way to a stream in front of us. The sign, by the side of the road, said that for 50 years children have loved fording the stream as they exit the zoo so I figured we were on the right path....just not accustomed to driving across streams in this modern day. Boomer thought it was time to go swimmin' as he heard and saw the water around us as we drove across the stream....oh what fun that was.

We left the zoo and went to Nazareth, PA to the Martin guitar company, which has been making legendary guitars since 1833. We arrived just as they were getting ready to start a new tour. It was nice that everyone got a set of headphones and transmitter so we could hear the tour guide nice and clearly. That's the first place I've been to that did this. Our tour guide was a little "dry" in his delivery of the info on making guitars. It's so nice that in this day and age of OSHA regs and restrictions for safety sake that you can still get up close and personal to see the artistry of how these craftsman make a quality product. Many places give you a video or pictures on the wall of how their product is made but Martin guitars takes you through each of the production areas where you can watch the craftsman working at their stations. And what skilled artisans they are ! From bending the wood to make the sides of the guitar, whittling on the necks to get a tight fit to the body of the guitar, sanding, polishing or inlaying the pearl around the hole, they all work to create an amazing instrument. I would highly recommend Martin guitar tour to anyone visiting northeast PA. They have a great museum and gift shop too. At the end of the tour we saw the wall of fame with all the musicians who either play Martin guitars or have played them. Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Paul McCartney, Stephen Stills, Steve Forbert, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, etc. What a neat place !

Sunday...

And what a gorgeous Sunday it was ! Temps were in the 70's...beautiful sunshine and a nice breeze. We got the laundry done, Linda spent a little time in the office working cause the one assistant manager had class today and I puttered around the house. We went to Lowe's for a few things...one of which was an organizing tray for nuts and bolts and screws and nails. We had one that was hanging in the basement of the rig but it was made of plastic and with all the bumps in the road, it had pretty much fallen apart. I had taped it together until I could find something better and put it in the back seat of the truck. The nails and screws were jiggling out of this taped up mess and all over the floor so it was time to find something new. After looking at the couple of choices that Lowes had to offer I picked one that seemed to have enough compartments. Brought it home and scooped up all the displaced nails and screws from the floor of the truck and what remained IN the old organizer and transferred it to the new one. It's great....everything is once again tidy and organized and safely back in the basement of the rig.

Tomorrow I think we'll head up to the Easton area to do some touristy things. The Martin guitar company is in Nazareth, PA and there is a zoo in the area. I really wanted to take Linda to the Crayola factory in Easton but from their website, it appears that they are closed on Mondays. Shucks...that is a fun place to go. Oh well, perhaps another time. Will post more tomorrow when we get back...hoping the weather is great tomorrow too !