Java and Jazz - New Coffee Shop in Red Bay

I previously mentioned I stopped by a new coffee shop in Red Bay and wanted to give Ken and Lara shout out this morning.

I like to promote small businesses and this is another worthy one in Red Bay.  If you like good coffee,  a pleasant atmosphere and good conversation, Java and Jazz is a great place to check out.  It is located down the street from the corner of the Red Bay Hotel.  The building previously housed a Snow Cone shop.

They have a FaceBook page that gives a little history.  They have have only been open a couple of months and already are establishing some traction.  Every Tuesday they offer free coffee to Veterans and First Responders.

They have a U.S. map on the wall as you enter, and encourage folks to mark where they are from on it.  They also created a group "Tiffin Travelers" which is pretty creative.

I like this place and wish I had visited our first day instead of near the end of the week before we left.  It has wifi, and is a nice place to get some work done, or reading.  Or, if you are like me, it is a great place to meet people.  I picked a good time to meet Ken and Lara and we hit it off as they explained their journey and how they were led to Red Bay.

Ken and Lara left Wisconsin and have a place out of town past where Bay Diesel is located. They attend a local church and heard that Red Bay needed a coffee shop and one thing led to another.

I found this on their FaceBook Page:

Why not check them out and tell your friends?

That's all for now. I just wanted to give them a plug and hope you have a great week!
Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Hosemasters

Wednesday morning was my second visit to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) Alumni Association, Hampton Roads Chapter Networking breakfast meeting.  I was particularly interested in going because Guy Zanti and his wife Kathleen Murray (USNA alumni '81 and '83 classes) were speaking.

They are entrepreneurs who own the only franchise in North America of Hosemasters.  

And they have an RV.

The meeting was similar to last time with a number of folks meeting each other before the proceedings got underway. (After all it is a networking meeting...)

After introductions and announcements, Guy and Kathleen began.  I was interested to see how they conducted the presentation.  They began with, "We do not believe in death by PowerPoint" so will both be speaking.

And they were good.  Very good.  Engaging, interesting and educational.

They spent most of their time talking about their concept of wealth, finances and money and how Rich Dad, Poor Dad had changed everything for them.  They are avid readers and had a partial display of their business books.  They had all of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series and some others including E-Myth.

Their style was very good because they offered information to others about how they started investing and moving toward their financial goals.  They have followed the Rich Dad, Poor Dad philosophy for at least 7-8 years.  I don't remember when they both started reading and being committed to it.  

More than their specific businesses (which include the Hosemasters franchise and owning a 39 unit apartment complex and an anti-rust [RSDW Metal Guard] solution they sell to marinas), they spoke of how to create wealth and view money.

I liked their audience participation questions:  "How many of you have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad?"...."How many of you have not read Rich Dad, Poor Dad?".

They brought a copy of CashFlow 101 which is a boardgame that is a popular teaching tool.  They were recruited by a nearby college to take some students through it.

The 30 minutes went by way too quickly!  

Afterwards they hung around a few minutes and talked with the audience.

Their presentation made me think of Amway.  Or Dave Ramsey.  I know of people who got into Amway and made a go of it.  Other friends have gotten into the teaching and financial precepts of debt-free living with Dave Ramsey's materials.  I say -- good for you and I hope you do well.

It was an interesting and motivating morning with my Habitat friend Dennis who invited me to the breakfast meeting.  I am glad I went! 

Another reason we love this RV lifestyle:  we get to meet folks like Guy and Kathleen!

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  Hope it is warm where you are or that you have a place to stay warm!

Merry Christmas!

Follow Up and My Brothers

Yesterday was a regular kind of day with not a whole lot going on.   I was going to post some pictures of Wal-Mart where we went grocery shopping but thought better against it...  :)

A highlight had to be going to see our new internal medicine doctor ~ Dr. Yuzon.  She seems very analytical, attentive, concerned and thorough.  My physical three weeks ago showed an abnormal EKG which was followed up by a stress echocardiography last week.  I went to talk to her about the results yesterday.

I know from long ago not to get a false sense of security from good results on stress tests.  How many people do we all know that had issues (like dropping dead) shortly after a stress test that didn't provide any clue?

Besides a left bundle branch block that was identified, there is a need to get to the bottom of this so I will add a followup to the cardiologist to the calendar next week.  As what has become familiar, the cardiologist said on the phone, 'I don't want you to be real concerned about this, we just want to figure out what is going on.  It doesn't look like there is a huge cause for worry."

Ok, good.  I won't.  But I am going to follow through on this and name it and treat it if possible.  There is some abnormality, there is some funny business going on, so let's find it and fix it.  Meanwhile, I feel fine with no symptoms that jump out.  No clogged arteries (at least from what they can tell) no shortness of breath, no weakness etc.

So that was the event of the day.

Except for a nice long call from older brother Marty.  He retired a couple of years ago from the corporate business world after his last stint with Levi Strauss in San Francisco.  He is currently building a Professional Business Coaching practice aimed at helping dentists.

It is interesting to see how he is going about it.  Little by little he is getting there and I have no doubt he will build his business and help folks.  He is already helping some clients.  He is driven and he will succeed.  His business is called, "What is YOUR Pain Point?".

My other brother Reid owns and manages a cleaning business (commercial janitorial) in Albuquerque called:  Environment Control - Albuquerque.  Third brother Brad is an Architect in Fort Worth with Cameron Alread and Associates.

I usually talk with each of them every week or two and recently saw Reid and Brad.  We have always gotten along well and have high respect and love for each other.  So it was good to catch up with Marty for a few minutes.

Pam and I plotted our strategy for a nice day and it looks like we are off later to the Henry Ford Museum in nearby Fairborn, MI.  We are looking forward to some sunny and warm days and the weather folks said some is heading our way.

Hope your week is going well!  And thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Brannon and Custom RV comes to the Roadrunner!

We met Brannon Hutcheson at Custom RV, Inc while we were in Red Bay, AL in December. He works on Tiffin Motorhomes and we scheduled him to install a residential refrigerator when we go back there in April.

Brannon drove out to Quartzsite to join up with the Tiffin owners from TiffinRVNetwork and meet up with customers out west.

We asked him to do three things for us:

- install a 'SeeLevel II Tank Monitor' gauge to get a digital readout of: the RV batteries' charge; the clear, black and gray tanks; and the propane tank

- install a ceiling fan in the bedroom and

- install a counter light above the counter to match the one over the sink.

He come over to our RV at about 8:30 in the morning and was done before 10:30. They started with the SeeLevel II Tank Monitor:

It is fun to see how things are connected underneath and to see how to open compartments that normally don't open. Fishing wire from one side of the coach to the other was necessary in order to connect with the wire and get the feed up to the display in the overhead cockpit readout.

Meanwhile, Don got started with preparation on the ceiling fan in the bedroom. They ran the wire for it through the heating duct and connected it to the closet light.

It turned out great. The interesting thing was watching them fishing the wire through the conduits and through the walls. Amazing.

Next was the light underneath the kitchen cabinet. They had to remove the back and bottom panels of the cabinet to get to the wiring.

It turned out well too.

After we got the work done, we had lunch and then joined up with new friends Steve and Karen and went into Quartzsite. We wandered around a couple of Swapmeets and saw some interesting displays. I quickly found out that I was missing my memory card in my camera. I left it in my card reader back in the Roadrunner. :(

One interesting product we saw was an RV sunshade the attachs to the outside of the front windshield with large magnets. At $395 is looked like a pretty good deal.

Another one was a booth that was selling solar panels that had an automatic adjustment to raise and lower the panels. I don't remember the price but Steve was pretty interested in them for his 42' Phaeton.

Later we went back to the Roadrunner and found out we missed the Cowboys who got beat badly in the NFL playoffs. We watched the second half of the San Diego-NY Jets game and saw the Chargers season come to an end.

There was a campfire again last night so we spent some at it mostly talking with Steve and Karen and getting to know them some more. Nice folks.

Back at the coach we saw the video, 'Lost in America', which had a bit of an RV theme to it but not real high on our list of recommendations...

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles. We will probably be here a few more days at Quartzsite but heavy rains are due to roll into the area in the next couple of days, so not sure if we will stay or we will go...

What I think of on April Fools Day

I have fond memories of my dad. He was a good guy and I remember putting sugar in the salt shakers on his birthday. It was on April 1st

There were four of us, but this shot is of my next oldest brother and I sometime about 1953. I'm on the right. Or was it the left?Not sure what we were doing but I saw this in the stack of photos I have scanned and aim to put together a whole book on these kinds of memories. (more on that another day)

Photos are great. Good times. He left quite a legacy. He'd be proud of the way his four boys turned out. He was a good man. A great example.

I was thinking of posting something like:

'We've decided to put our RV dream on hold!'
or
'We are freaking out and can't do this RV full-time thing...'

...APRIL FOOLS!!

But I came across this instead and decided not to.
Plus we are still committed and excited about pursuing the RV lifestyle.

Hope you day is memorable.