November 6th, 2009
We have a guest from Virginia who is all into politics and the healthcare debate. He was complaining about a Sesame Street episode that contains a disparaging reference to PoxTV, which sounds a lot like Fox TV. He says it’s not just coincidental that a Federally-funded TV program comes out against his favorite network. Maybe not, I don’t know.
When he wasn’t complaining about politics, he was bragging about the new house he bought in the mountains of Virginia. He said he found his Virginia mountain home on the web, and the price was low. And of course, he got the $8000 home buyer’s credit, and a low mortgage interest rate. He says his monthly mortgage and insurance payments are much lower than his previous house, and he works from home on the internet.
In fact, he plans to get a home equity loan HELOC and use the money to buy more land adjoining his acreage. He wants to buy the land soon, because he thinks that prices and interest rates will soon go up. He thinks that investment property in the mountains will be the new hot market, and he plans to have as much as possible.
He’s probably right, but most of us here are still investing our excess funds in a couple of lottery tickets each week.
Tags: HELOC, Real estate, Virginia, West Virginia
Posted in Finance, Real estate | Comments Off
October 25th, 2009
We have a tendency around here to let things slip until they have to be fixed.
- Did a limb fall out of a tree? Oh, we’ll cut it up for firewood next week.
- Is the toilet in 203 running again? Oh, we’ll fix it when there is time.
These are just examples, and I guess it’s just human nature.
I’ve been checking out a facility management website and I’m seeing the error of our ways. We have an obligation to ourselves and our guests to keep our buildings in tip-top shape. We need to replace bad light bulbs, fix dripping faucets, stop roof leaks and fix those places outside where the paint is peeling. We need to manage the facility, not let it manage us.
The International Facility Management Association has a convention nearby in a few months, and I might need to go and learn the newest ideas about facility management.
Tags: Facility management
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
October 25th, 2009
The autumn weather has been beautiful, and the guests really enjoy walking in the woods.
One fellow from South Carolina (or maybe it was North Carolina) asked if we had a big lake around here. He recently bought a boat that he found on the internet, and he pulled it behind his car all the way here. Well yes, we do have nice lake and it is well stocked with fish…so off he went with his boat and fishing pole to test it out! We asked him to make certain to clean his outboard engine, because we don’t want any non-native South Carolina (or NC) species introduced.
Tags: boat, Environment, North Carolina, South Carolina
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
September 5th, 2009
We like to keep things nice and calm here at the Naugas. The scenery is beautiful, we are far from civilization and we attract a mellow crowd.
But a couple of days ago we had two guests get into a heated discussion about healthcare. One was a doctor (general practitioner, I think) and the other a lawyer. The doc wants single-payer coverage, the lawyer wants things left alone. Doc said he’s tired of dealing with insurance companies and financially-stressed patients. Attorney said he wants to keep suing the pants off doctors.
Up here, we learn what medical information we need off the web and get free medicines when we can. We get plenty of exercise and breathe fresh air. Whatever the politicians do, they will do.
Tags: Obama, Rx
Posted in Health & Medicine, Medical | Comments Off
August 19th, 2009
We got a call a couple of weeks ago from a couple who wanted to book a reservation (good), but wanted to bring their dog (not so good). Normally, we don’t allow pets, but bookings are down so we decided to make an exception. They assured us that the dog was well behaved and didn’t bark.
Surprise! They were telling the truth! Their dog was a cute little terrier or bichon frise or spaniel or shih Tzu or some other breed (I’m not too good at keeping them straight). They brought it in on a leash, and it stayed right with them…just as calm as could be.
When I complimented them on how well behaved their dog was, they said that it hadn’t always been like that. They said the dog used to snap and bite at people and bark all the time. At one point they thought they would have to put down the dog. Then they found a dog trainer in Austin, Texas (their home town) that came to their house. The dog trainer taught the dog not to bite or bark.
They said the dog trainer used a “submission hold” on the dog to help it realize that it was not the Alpha Dog of the house, and therefore did not need to maintain its “dominance” over all the people in the house.
They said that the dog became a pleasant companion after only a couple of dog trainer sessions at their Austin house.
I will remember the “submission hold,” as it could come in handy with some of our other guests.
Tags: Alpha dog, Austin, Dog training, Pets
Posted in Dogs, Pets | Comments Off
August 11th, 2009
This summer we’ve seen a drop in nights at the Naugas Inn, and I think it’s due to the Staycation craze.
Of course, people are staycationing (taking vacations at or close to home) because of the economy. And it’s hard to blame them, since every home town has some fun things to see and do. People are going to their local swimming pools (even backyard pools) and pretending to be on vacation. They take picnic baskets, even take their digital cameras and take lots of photographs as if they were in some exotic place.
Companies like Wal-Mart and Target are jumping on the trend, even a photo retouching company is running a sale on retouching snapshots from your staycation. Maybe they can crop out your neighbor’s car from the background in the pictures, along with slimming you.
Of course, more staycations means fewer guests for us. We just have to hang on until the economy improves and (we hope) pent-up demand will bring us cars full of happy vacationers.
Tags: Staycation, Vacation
Posted in Travel | Comments Off
July 31st, 2009
We had guests from Austin, Texas last weekend, and they were real RATS! In this case, that stands for Retired Austin Travelers. They said they had retired from teaching in the Austin public schools, and were now “spending their children’s inheritance” by seeing the world.
The husband said they had visited 21 of the 44 nations in Europe, along with countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Their next trip was going to be to Antarctica in the “summer” (January), where they hope to see some penguins. They also enjoy flying and driving around the United States.
The wife said that there are a lot of retired people in Austin who like to do a lot of travel, and that they were by no means exceptional. They mentioned a magazine called International Travel News, where they get a lot of their information on new destinations.
They behaved themselves – no drunken brawls or running naked through the dining room – so we were glad to have them visit and invited them back the next time they were in this neck of the woods.
Posted in Retirement, Travel | Comments Off
June 21st, 2009
We had a heck of a storm last week, with strong winds and heavy rains. We cold see it coming on Weather.com, but that didn’t really help during the event. We experienced a little flood damage in a storeroom when rain water entered through the roof, but the guests were not inconvenienced.
Things are back to normal now, with plenty of happy guests. The hummingbirds and song birds are out in full force every morning.
We are considering linking up with Expedia or Travelocity, so you may find us there soon.
Tags: Hummingbirds, Song birds, Weather
Posted in Birds, Weather | Comments Off
May 11th, 2009
We had a guest who seemed normal at first…pleasant, quiet husband, etc. Later we got scared of her.
It turns out that once she ate some contaminated food at a national restaurant chain (she would not say which) and got food poisoning. Really bad food poisoning, so bad it damaged her kidneys. I’m not sure if the food was not cooked properly, or had fecal microorganisms, or what, but it must have been really bad.
Anyway, she had this terrible case of food poisoning. So bad that she lost most of the functioning of her kidneys, or was it her liver, I don’t remember. Anyway, she found a lawyer to represent her against the restaurant chain in a lawsuit. Her food poisoning lawyer must have been a great litigator, because she received a “seven-figure settlement.” (That means over $1 million, in case you are doing the calculations.)
So now you see why we were scared of her? We chewed our fingernails when she ate in the dining room…would she catch an E. coli or a strep or a staph or a norovirus or something and sic her food poisoning lawyer on us?
The kitchen staff was all smiles when I told them she had checked out.
Posted in Food poisoning, Lawyer, Legal | Comments Off
May 2nd, 2009
Everyone has been talking about the swine / H1N1 flu on the television news, newspapers, radio…you can’t get away from the news. Experts are being interviewed by reporters right and left. We have a journalist staying with us this evening, and he explained how journalism finds all these experts to interview.
He said that reporters, anchormen and anchorwomen, 60-minutes staff, newspaper employees, bloggers…they all go to websites that match up reporters and sources. Sources are the experts, and reporters try to find them to get an exclusive interview.
He said that his Rolodex, friends and Craigslist ads will carry him only so far, so the reporters and sources linking websites are an important tool for him to bring us the news.
Now if he would only bring news that those swine flu bugs are laying off, I would be a lot more relaxed.
Tags: Blogs, Journalists, News, Newspapers, Radio, Reporters, TV, Un-named sources
Posted in Bloggers, Journalism, Newspapers | Comments Off