Mark's Off Road Warehouse Fire Thread

[65swb45]

So did Mark give out the new cell phone number? How do we get a hold of you??

That’s a good question. The old land line number is supposed to work on the cellphone, and it did…for the first day. Now it only wants to call out, not receive. I called a few people yesterday and their caller ID said Mark’s Off Road.

My wife and the phone company are trying to figure out what is not working.

(Edit: phone is now working )

Thanks for asking.

 

[Ditcherman]

Normally I like to wait a few weeks between posts, but yesterday I took a begrudging but potentially huge step forward for Mark’s Off Road. My wife handles most of the administrative side of the business, including the phone and internet connectivity.

I have mentioned earlier in the thread that I have been without a phone in the shop for over a year (since sometime before I finished painting the building) and the phone company promised us a new wireless system that kept us from investing in any equipment. Well, we finally got the new system, only to find out that it won’t support a land line!

As it so happens, when we upgraded our phones last year before my backpacking trip, we ended up with an extra cellphone (family plan) that has sat in a drawer unused for a year. Voila! Problem solved, maybe.

Mark’s Off Road now has a cellphone instead of a landline. I will be capable of receiving and sending calls from many more places than before. On the days when I am home working on construction projects, I will now potentially be able to conduct business as well.

What remains to be seen is if I will have to create something like a ‘known callers only’ log to keep from being inundated with texts. There are a few unknown variables, some of which concern me. But I have not forgotten @ceylonfj40nut challenge to try a little harder to keep up with the times.

Brave new world.

I beleive “keeping up with the times” means keeping in mind it’s your phone, your time management, and people need to understand that you’ll get back with them when you get back with them. I think that’s your true spirit, you do your thing and if that means helping a customer in the moment then so be it but it also might mean you’ll get back with them when you’re not elbows deep in a project or next week or whenever. That’s what voicemail and the extension of that, texting, are for.

I’m working on lowering others’ expectations, join me.
Older people tend to feel more obligated to answer/respond immediately. The younger generation may be on to something when they don’t answer immediately.

 

[1911]

The younger generation may be on to something when they don’t answer immediately.

Having a narcissist for an ex-daughter-in-law has taught me the wisdom of this.

 

[75whitewater55]

That’s a good question. The old land line is supposed to work on the cellphone, and it did…for the first day. Now it only wants to call out, not receive. I called a few people yesterday and their caller ID said Mark’s Off Road.

My wife and the phone company are trying to figure out what is not working.

In the meantime, you can try the ‘other’ cellphone number, the one it came with: 818-823-1323.

Thanks for asking.

That’s a good question. The old land line is supposed to work on the cellphone, and it did…for the first day. Now it only wants to call out, not receive. I called a few people yesterday and their caller ID said Mark’s Off Road.

My wife and the phone company are trying to figure out what is not working.

In the meantime, you can try the ‘other’ cellphone number, the one it came with: 818-823-1323.

Thanks for asking.

Hi Mark,
This is Chas, I sent you the carburetor from my 85 FJ60 earlier this week and I received your voicemail from yesterday. Sorry I missed your call, my family and I were driving home from Kings Canyon NP. Anyways, feel free to message me here or we can try to connect next week via phone call. Thanks!!!

 

[65swb45]

I beleive “keeping up with the times” means keeping in mind it’s your phone, your time management, and people need to understand that you’ll get back with them when you get back with them. I think that’s your true spirit, you do your thing and if that means helping a customer in the moment then so be it but it also might mean you’ll get back with them when you’re not elbows deep in a project or next week or whenever. That’s what voicemail and the extension of that, texting, are for.

I’m working on lowering others’ expectations, join me.
Older people tend to feel more obligated to answer/respond immediately. The younger generation may be on to something when they don’t answer immediately.

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

I have a few dozen aphorisms I have made up over the years to help remind me of the things I think are important to remember. The one that comes to mind regarding my new cellphone adventure is this: the world that we were told we were born to be in is never the world that we end up with.

At the moment, the lack of customer ‘traffic’ reminds me of a country store that has been bypassed by a new highway. I am trying to decide what I am willing to do AT THIS STAGE OF MY LIFE to increase visibility/convenience. The cellphone seemed like it could be useful in that regard.

I am also very cognizant and mindful of what you are saying about setting boundaries. I often refer to this concept as ’terms of engagement’. And I have a lot of them. THAT is not going to change because of the cellphone.

There are about five dozen MUDers who have my private cellphone number. Each and every one of them has been instructed to NEVER contact me about business on that number. But if I absolutely HAVE to be gotten ahold of, any one of them could relay a message to me.

For the most part, they are very good about respecting my privacy. Interestingly enough, some of them are vendors, and some of them don’t seem to have the same boundaries. Everyone is different.

I have mentioned a few times over the last two decades being in a Walmart in Texas with Marlin in 2006 while we were attending the Lone Star Roundup. As we were walking the aisles, his cellphone rang and he took the call. It was a customer who needed technical assistance on an install, and he took several minutes to walk the guy through it. Afterwords, I remember telling him that I could not do that. Answering tech on the trail, or in camp is one thing. But there HAS to be limits.

Later that year, having recently met Dan Fredrickson of RuffStuff at the 45 run, and wanting to support his fledgling business, I called his shop number on a Sunday to leave a message regarding a prospective project. To my surprise, he answered. When I inquired if he was in the shop, working, he said no, he was laying on the couch in his living room at home watching TV!

I asked him why he would answer the phone on his private time, and he jokingly offered to hang up! In Dan’s case, it was a little easier to understand: he was ‘hungry’ to grow his brand new business, willing to do almost anything. And I can understand that. I was ‘there’ myself when I started out at 17, agreeing to build out a restaurant patio for $3/hr because of the exposure that boulevard job got me to several hundred patrons in the course of the build.

But It’s been a while since I’ve been ‘hungry’ like that. I’ve built a reputation over the last three and a half decades to where I don’t feel like I have to whore myself out at all hours of the day to stay afloat. So in general, people’s calls for ‘keeping up with the times’ aren’t going to change me much.

I think the concept of boundaries/terms of engagement could make for an interesting discussion in chat. But then again, I have over-estimated the crowd there before. Maybe you would consider starting a convo yourself.

 

[65swb45]

 

[peesalot]

Mark, is the location services on, now we can pin your location. & now you can get pics of what people are trying to describe. Hope all is well.

 

[65swb45]

Wow! A whole two month have passed since my last post. Busy, very busy. Unfortunately, not Mark’s Off Road busy. But very good life busy.

My wife and I are now basically moved into the guest house. It’s been an interesting phenomenon that, while we are literally just moving across the yard, we’ve both embraced the ‘temporary’ (that terms keeps becoming vaguer) move as an opportunity to ‘consolidate’ our possessions. I feel like we’ve shed 5% of what we own in two months. And we’ve got another 4 to go. I will be sealing off the master bedroom of the main house off from the rest of the house so that we can continue using most of it until the bedroom(s) are redone.

Right now I’ve got my wife on board with the idea of dropping the wall separating our old bedroom from the next and rebuilding as more of a suite, like we’ve just moved into. Last weekend I pitched the idea of putting in a doorway to the 3rd bedroom (all 3 bedrooms are in a row) and turning it into a respectable walk in closet, making the proposed master suite even larger by virtue of not having to have any dressers or wardrobe fixtures. All three rooms will require dropping the exterior facing walls for upgraded electrical outlets, insulation, and modern windows. Popcorn ceilings go byebye, and oak flooring replaced with Pergo.

This is exactly how I like to spend my free time these days, so I consider it a win.

In the meantime, I finally got motivated to get the swb45 towed from my house down to the shop, ostensibly to overhaul the brake system. Well, as snowballs go, the front axle and leaf springs are now off the truck! Long story short, the front axle was one of the only things that I didn’t build myself when I did the frame up in 1992. I happened to have just acquired a 1971 project 40 with a supposedly rebuilt front axle on it at the time. It LOOKED clean like a rebuilt axle, so I just put it under the frame.

Well, once I started digging in, the more I saw, the more I knew that I was going to have to overhaul the whole thing. The spindles were glued to the knuckle housings with blue RTV, no gaskets. A couple of the knuckle studs had been replaced, but not correctly. The holes for the studs were proud of the deck of the knuckle, and no one took the time to flatten the deck. So the knuckle arm had a false torque. The bearings looked fine, BUT THERE WAS RUST ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE ARM! WT actual F. When I popped the 3rd, sure enough it had no gasket either, just blue RTV . It will all be good before it leaves Mark’s Off Road.

As always, if you click the like button, then I’ll know you stopped by.

 

[65swb45]

Because people like pics, here’s a couple. First, the remodeled guest bedroom just before we moved in. I gutted it to the studs, ran new wiring, R13, new Low-E windows, drywall, shiplap and flooring. Approximately two years, in my spare time.

Then, a new porch for the guest house that I knocked out a couple of weeks ago, after @tequila4x4 put in a new tankless water heater for us. It ties in nicely with our outdoor shower

 

[65swb45]

Well, instead of two months, I’ve got an update in less than a week! A busy week, culminating in a very busy day!

Took the 45 to the home improvement store at 6am for another dozen bags of concrete. Started the process of loading them in the wheelbarrow, mixing and pouring them by hand like I’ve done for the last 47 years, and had the next section done by 8am. I can tell the core strengthening exercises I started five years ago have really paid off, as my back handled the job well.

It was an overcast day, and I had been waiting for an overcast day to weld in the custom wheelwell arch that I fabbed up a couple of months ago. So after running an errand and having an early lunch, I made a pair of bump stop extensions for @majdomo and mocked up the arch. Two and a half hours later I was close to done, the sun was coming out, and my energy level was dropping off. Time to call it a win and put the tire back on.

 

[65swb45]

On Wednesday I had the local off road shop swap my old custom wheels on to my tires. I had taken the wheels off 5 years ago when I needed new tires, and didn’t have the time I wanted to deal with 17 years of rock rash, so I had the tires put on the spare rims for my K5. AT LAST THE 40 IS SPORTING HUBCAPS AGAIN!

Hit the like button if you feel like letting me know you stopped by.