The one with Griz

Thu, Jul 17 2008 by Vanessa.

I’ve obviously fallen behind on my updates. We’ve started taking wallpaper down to move along with remodeling. We are nearing the end of our journey with Abacus. I think in the end it will all work out _mostly_ fair for us. The valuation came back disappointingly low but after John and I thought about it, we should have expected that. The whole reason we need to leave is that John had no control over improving the business and the performance of other “participants” lacked what we considered competence, so of course the value is going to be lower than we’d like. When you work with monkeys you can’t expect to produce gold. In fact, when you work with monkeys you should ALWAYS expect to have poo thrown at you and guess what? That’s just what happened. We are just thrilled that Abacus is going … going … gone!!!!!

I also received my Apple Developer Certificate, ironically it arrived the same day the new iPhone was release, and I’m happy as a clam.  As promised in an earlier post Mr. Jobs, I am in the process of buying a mac!  So excited!!!!

Most importantly, July 15 was our 8 year Anniversary. We celebrated with Papa Murphy’s Pizza (http://papamurphys.com/) and alcohol. I had wine and John had Crown, Coke and Grenadine, I believe. However, yesterday was more of a celebration. We went up to Boerne, TX to shop for RVs. We met the most entertaining gentleman in the entire town of Boerne! His name was Griz Harkins and let me tell you something …. 40 years of RVing has groomed Mr. Griz to be one of the BEST RV salespeople we have met.

Mr. Griz had the accent and speech patterns of a good ol’ Texas boy despite living in Alaska for more than 30 years.   He’s participated in the RV lifestyle for more than 40 years so his ability to rattle off pros and cons of tile flooring, washer/dryer setups, multiple vanities, embedded stoves, raised-frame?? layouts, full wall slide outs , etc… was amazing.  Now, I know, I didn’t get all that lingo right but I’m learning.  I’ll get it!  So we looked at 7 or 8 motor homes and I think we’ve decided that’s the way to go.    There are several reasons backing this decision ….

• First of all, motor homes allow easy access to food, the restroom and our bed while driving down the road.  Pulling a 5th wheel onto the side of the road so that someone can jump in the back to take a nap (is that legal??) or tinkle could be a hassle.
• Second, our doggies.  Yes, they rule our world.  They tell us what to do and when.  We know it and admit it and frankly, they’ll travel much “calmer” if they can be near us.  Plus, I wanna be near them but I don’t want to be crammed into a pickup truck.
• Third, you can get a brand new motor home for under $100K.  That’s cheaper than a house, the multi-number slide outs have a surprising amount of room and frankly, I wonder why we ever bought a house in the first place.
• Fourth, we found a great organization called Phoundation For Change (www.phoundationForChange.org) based in CO.  Of course, all great, innovative, leading-edge non-profits must develop in CO, the greatest state in the Union.  Anyway, the Phoundation for Change is dedicated to finding methods to allow everyday individuals affordable options to aid in their movement toward renewable energy sources.  They assist in Diesel to SVO conversions, solar panel installations and much more.  So of course, I spoke with the founder and we’re teaming up.  This means, we should be able to power MOST if not all of our life off vegetable oil.  If we get the right motor home, our travels, our cooking, our cooling/heating, our every-energy-consuming-activity-you-can-think-of will be powered by vegetable oil!  How’s that for making a planetary difference!

Besides learning a great deal from Griz, I just had the best time in the world listening to his voice, dissecting his sentence structure and in general, being in the presence of someone uplifting, supportive and non-judgmental.  He didn’t seem to mind that two fruity-tooty crazy-minded “nuts” found it appropriate to ask him every question under the sun regarding RVing.  Instead, he took pride in his job, made sure to willingly answer each question we dreamed up and frankly, he reminded me so much of my grandfather it was like walking around with a long-lost friend.  Just let me say, if you’re in the market for an RV give good ol’ Griz a call!  He’s located at Ancira RV in Boerne, TX - www.ancirarv.com

Thanks Griz!  We’ll be back!

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