Randy Ingle » Friends and Family

Where have all of the public notice bulletin boards gone?

Randy — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:59:47 +0000

My sister asked me to take a lot of her “now hiring” posters with me as I travel around town to tack up on all of the public bulletin boards that I come across. I told her “sure, no problem” because I could remember seeing a lot of them everywhere I go. I took about forty of them, and a tin full of push-pins and I put them in a bag to keep in the truck. Amazingly enough, every time I go into a public place now, I look around and don’t see any of those bulletin boards anywhere! What’s up with that? Where are they hiding them all? What has happened to the sense of community that this place used to have?

If local businesses want to support the community, and have the community support it by shopping at their stores, I would think that they would show some support to the community by having bulletin boards like that somewhere in the store. They could have a few simple rules, like everyone needs to put the posting date on what they are hanging up so that the store employees can remove anything more than a month old. In this struggling economy, this is one simple method of co-operation that wouldn’t hurt a soul, and build up some good will. What are your thoughts on this?

It’s going to be a long winter

Randy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:22:59 +0000

It seems that every other day it is either freezing rain or snowing out! I’ve been keeping very busy plowing and sanding. Not getting enough sleep at night, but manage to catch a few cat naps in my truck from time to time. Thank goodness for coffee! I have a few business clients that are mom and pop variety stores and the let me come in and fill my thermos for free. They are nice people and show their appreciation every time I show up. They know that I’m usually in a hurry to go take care of other clients lots and dooryards so when they see me out there plowing and sanding they come out to the truck and take my thermos from me into the store and fix my coffee for me and bring it back out to me before I’m ready to leave. They know that when I have time I’ll stop by and chat when the weather is better and that I’ll be in there ordering food and buying lottery tickets.

Sunny two days in a row!

Randy — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:14:57 +0000

We have had a lot of snow this winter – an unusual amount! It seems like it snows for three or four or even five days, then we have two days of sun, then snow again. This winter is making up for the mild winters of recent years past! The snowplow guys are sure making money this year – but they must be exhausted! We had a little bit of warmer weather and some rain on Monday, which made for a real mess when it froze up again overnight! I don’t know anyone around here that will be sad to see the end of this winter!

Lakes not frozen solid enough yet

Randy — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:34:56 +0000

My friends and I tested the lake yesterday to see if it was frozen enough to put our ice fishing shack out on the ice. We’re looking forward to snowmobiling and ice fishing!

The lake isn’t quite frozen enough yet; we don’t dare drive our trucks out on the ice to place the shack in its customary spot. Oh well. The camp roads are good enough for some snowmobiling though, so we’ll have to keep ourselves happy with snowmobiling for the time being. This is actually a good time for that – the temperatures aren’t too bitter cold yet, so we can have a good time without getting too cold.

New Year’s resolutions

Randy — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:23:58 +0000

My New Year’s resolution this year is to take a little bit more time to spend with my friends and family. I think I’ve been spending too much time at work. I know I need to make a living, but I also have to have a life! So, I’m starting out by spending extra time with my nieces and nephews outside giving them rides on my snowmobile this holiday week since they don’t have school. We have plenty of snow, so we’ll be making snowmen and going sledding as well. I’ve always liked playing in the snow, and I’m going to take some time to do it!

Worked through my Christmas

Randy — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:19:34 +0000

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was a busy one, I ended up spending a lot of time plowing and sanding my customers. They were all anxious about their guests and customers being able to get in and out of their driveways. I told them before the season started that if I had to plow or sand driveways on Christmas that I was going to charge double time, and that they would have to call me to get me to come out; that I was not going to “assume” they needed me.

Well, the phone started ringing at 4am! I didn’t get to stop plowing or sanding until about 6pm, which is when I went home and had Christmas with my family. So it was a busy one, I hope that everyone pays their bill when they get it!

Christmas guests

Randy — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:50:47 +0000

My sister arrived today, along with her hubby and kids. I haven’t seen them in a few months, they’ve been so busy moving into their new home that they haven’t had much time to come by and visit. They brought their dog with them, a lovable old keeshond that just loves everyone. They’re planning on spending the night and tomorrow here with me to have an old fashioned family Christmas together. I’m really glad to see them, and glad they came here instead of me going to their place. Their place isn’t set up enough yet to have a family Christmas. It should be fun having them here! They helped me to decorate the tree, and we played Christmas music and drank hot apple cider and hot chocolate while we decorated. We had a great time!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Rather rude

Randy — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:46:59 +0000

Since Kyle called in sick my wife volunteered to come to the K of C Hall with me yesterday to help me get it ready for their weekly Bingo night. She is a real life saver sometimes; if I had to do it alone it would take a very long time!

She spent her time setting up the tables and putting out clean ashtrays, and cleaning up the kitchen while I concentrated on the floor care. I’m very fussy when it comes to the carpet cleaning there, and I am the one responsible for the proper use of the Hall’s commercial vacuum cleaners, so I told her that I’d take care of it while she did the kitchen.

While my wife was scrubbing degreaser on the hood of the exhaust fan one of the K of C member’s wives came into the Hall and started to berate my wife for a maintenance problem that neither one of us have anything to do with! My poor wife couldn’t get a word in edgewise for several minutes, she just stood there quietly and let the woman rant. After a couple of minutes I heard the woman’s voice and stopped my work and went into the kitchen to see what was going on. When I saw what was happening I walked in between the two of them and told the lady that she was barking up the wrong tree and to take her complaints to the right place. Boy was she upset!

My wife and I had a good laugh about that when we had the Hall to ourselves again!

New boots

Randy — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:40:00 +0000

Guest post by Sheila Powell

Well I was really thrilled when Janet called me and suggested that we go riding together next weekend at the farm. The only thing about riding with Janet is that she is always trying to get me to learn to jump. Jumping scares me a little bit, and I have no desire to compete with Beezie Madden for any gold medals! I just enjoy a nice walk, trot, or canter. More excitement than that I don’t need! Janet has always been a thrill junkie, and she just can’t even imagine being content to NOT jump. I’m more than happy to provide her with an appreciative audience.

We haven’t had the chance to ride together at all this year, what with all of the health issues that Janet and her family have been going through. Janet told me that she needs to pick up a new pair of durable riding boots this week before we go riding though; the surgery on her foot has made it too hard to get her old boots on. I don’t think that it was the surgery itself; I think that it is because she has been so inactive that she put on a little bit of weight and it has mostly gone to her calves, making her old boots too tight to pull on, even with the boot hooks.

I told her that I’d like to join her at the tack shop to drop off my ariat boot bag for repair. The zipper is broken and I’m tired of fussing with it. Hopefully they can get it fixed for me.

How does that work exactly?

Randy — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:17:37 +0000

A couple of days ago I got an email from someone I had never heard of before, asking me if I wanted to exhange links with them. Apparantly this person was on a mission to get some free links out of me, because when I went to check out his web site, I saw that his website was still under construction.

I don’t mind helping out a friend when they want to build links for their web page, and I even encourage people to check out the free link exchange webpage to see if their service is something that they would benefit from. I just don’t appreciate it very much when someone asks me to link to a blank page. I’m rather picky about who I link to, and I would hate to give up a link to a blank page and then later find out that the page is something sub-par that I don’t really want to be associated with!