The Zing is Dead; Long Live the Zing

Tomorrow might be the end of the year, but today marks the end of an era.  Zinger’s Inc. is no more.

For it’s today that the entity that we created 18 years ago ceases to be.  Kaput.  Fini.  All taxes done, all paperwork complete, and our corporate dissolution papers submitted…and, of course, thanks to “Business-friendly Oregon” we also had to submit a hefty ($100) fee with it. 

Sheesh.  They get you coming and going.

We’re no longer in the ice cream business, or any business for that matter.  Retirement beckons and it’s at this point when we can look back and say “it was worth it.”  Though we’re not saying it too loudly.  Running any business is hard, and we went into it with major trepidation.  The first few years were tough, and we almost threw in the towel, but we regrouped, refinanced, decided to make our own ice cream and finally, after a number of years, became an overnight sensation.

Seaside is a tough market for a number of reasons.  It’s a tourist market, and it’s highly seasonal, especially for a product like ice cream.  Plus, it’s the kind of market that spawns imitations because…well, it always has.  There are few chain stores here; mostly Mom & Pop operations like ours was, and they all tend to do the same thing as someone else, or more than one thing. 

There was a time when we had NO Italian restaurants, then we had one, then FOUR, and now we have two (though one is Italian and pizza).  We when first came to town there were two ice cream shops, then 3, 4, 5, (one per year it seemed) and then once we started making homemade ice cream…more shops.  And with one exception they did ice cream AND something else – ice cream and gift, or soda, or cupcakes, or candy, or fried foods, or sandwiches, and so on.

Still, I am very proud of what we accomplished.  Which is perhaps why it made letting go tougher than I thought it would be.

We were ready for retirement.  We had been trying to sell Zinger’s since last year.  Even though we were making good money, we were physically running out of gas.  In summer, it’s a go-go-go everyday 11-12 hour thing, and it was a lot easier to do when I was 55 than when I was 66.  We had received a couple of offers previous to this summer, but they never went anywhere.  We finally had a good offer from a wonderful couple who wanted to live in Seaside and do something different, and in mid-September we sealed the deal.  Honestly, we could not have found better buyers for the business.

We drove right into training them the day after the sale, pretty much nonstop over two weekends.  They were eager and both wanted to learn everything at the same time, so that slowed the process a little, but in the end that wasn’t a big deal.  There were some “hey, this looks easy – oh, I guess it’s not” episodes, but overall the training went well. 

But I surprised myself in not being able to get out of the way and let go the first weekend.  It was much tougher than I expected.  I could excuse it by saying I was worried that stuff wasn’t getting done or not getting done properly…or, perhaps it was just not the way i would have done it.  I was pretty awful on the first Saturday (our busiest day…er, I should say “Zinger’s busiest day”).  Mona finally had to warn me to back off, and it was difficult, but by the next day I was a bit better.   And then – they surprised us by telling us to take part of the day off and go home (we came back before closing to help).  They did fine (what choice did they have?) and it turned out they were pretty busy.  So that encouraged me to back off even further.  We eventually got through it all, and the second weekend it was more of the same, and they did much better.  They were usually there at the store before we got there and had stuff done all by themselves.  We got busy on Saturday and they did OK. as did I trying to lay low and let them do it all.  Mona was getting the feeling that they had just about learned all they wanted to learn from us.  Sure enough, they sent us home early on Sunday again and that was it.

Since then, we’ve only received a couple of emails asking a few questions.  They’ve made some more ice cream on their own, including some new flavors, and they really haven’t made very many changes.  Not that we care one way or the other – we’re finally over that.

Me, especially.  So it’s over.  Frankly, we’re just happy to have found someone to dump the business on take over and continue our success.  They are a very nice couple and should do just fine.  Not that we care one way or the other, right?  Because the check was good and cashed long ago.

Baked Goods

I'm sure I was cute like this.  Yeah, right.

Christmas time always provides a wealth of memories, and I’m no exception.  What is most vivid is…cookies.  Lots of special Christmas cookies.  It helped to make me what I am today.

Fat.

I’ve always had a weakness for baked goods.  You might be thinking, “Well, if that’s the case, why didn’t you run a bakery instead of an ice cream parlor.” 

We almost did.  We actually looked at several bakeries in our search for a business, but they either were

(a) non-money makers, a common problem in this day-and-age when the “local bakery” = “Safeway” or

(b) too expensive for us. 

It’s probably a good thing we didn’t buy one, as I’d probably weigh 100 pound more than I do now.  And Mona would, too (her weakness for beaked good might be even more-so than my own).  No wonder we’re so compatible.  This lovin’ in the oven explains why it’s so easy to buy presents for us.  Think: food.

Family and friends thought so.  All this past week we’ve enjoyed Danish Kringle, Scottish Bannock, and Hungarian Beigli.  We still have a couple of unopened prizes in the fridge – some unmarked breakfast bread from Vermont with cheese and bacon, and something else marked “refrigerate immediately” – that’s all we know.  Those are magic words, by the way - “refrigerate immediately.”  Sigh.

And cookies.  Christmas cookie are magical.  You get types of cookies in December that you never get any other time of the year.  Coconut cresents.  Thumbprint cookies.  Lebkuchens.  Gingerbread people.  Snickerdoodles.  Snowballs.  RUM BALLS.  Pretty sure I got my first buzz as a nine-year old eating too many rum balls.

And how do curry favor with Santa?  Leave cookies.  No brainer.

This carries over to daily life, too.  You want to build camaraderie at the office?  You bring donuts.  We should extend this – you want world peace?  Tell Pakistan that it’s their turn on Friday to bring donuts for everyone (and toss in a few bagels, OK?).  Deed done.  War is over, if you bake it.

Forget fancy state dinners.  Coffee (or tea) and pastries.  Maybe some bagels with cream cheese and lox, or petit fours, or even a bear claw or some éclairs.  Maple bar, scones, cupcakes, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, brownies, cake, PIE!

And cookies galore.

I think I gained five pounds writing this.  Merry eating to all.

New House!

One of the rewards of selling the business and retiring that we’re looking forward to is a new house.  An actual NEW house (we’ve never had one that no one else has ever lived in) and one that, for reasons that I will try to make clear, is OUR house.

We don’t live a “normal life” in that most houses have too much or too little of what we want or need.  We started to look for a “retirement settlement” more than NINE YEARS ago.  We knew we wanted a smaller home with an open floor plan and a decent kitchen on some acreage.  That last part was critical – where we live now I can stand in our living room and look into our neighbor’s kitchen – and turn 180 degrees and look into our OTHER neighbor’s kitchen.  And we’re right next to a busy street (literally no front yard so our front room is about 12 feet from the street – we hear everything).  So some space apart was needed.

In looking for houses on acreage, we found old homes, huge homes and absolutely nothing even close to what we wanted.  We knew that building would be too expensive, so…we decided to buy bare land and build.  But we also decided that we could build modularly and get more of what we wanted AND save in the process.  So nearly four years ago we found the ideal two acres in Warren, OR (near St. Helens and Scappoose, about 30 minutes from Portland), and began the process.

THAT process took longer than expected, cost more than expected, and still isn’t complete, but as I indicated a few days ago – it’s at an “ATTA BOY” point that’s worth bragging about (I will bitch about the process in a future blog).  The house was completed at the build site in Auburn, WA taken apart (two modules), and delivered to our home site in Warren for attachment to the foundation that was built earlier this fall.  The “set date” was last Tuesday (which as you’ll see extended into Wednesday) and I took a bunch of pictures and video.  We’ll get to that in a moment.

A bit of an overview:  Day 1 was for delivery to the site, where the modules are unloaded from the transport trucks and left on site (not on the foundation – yet).  A second crew came on the next day with a “crawler” that moves the modules next to the foundation, where the crew “slides” the module in place with special metal tracks laid down on top of the foundation.  There had been some concern that setting the house this late in the fall would be problematic since (a) it rains a lot and (b) our property has a water issue (in that it doesn’t drain well and we have a lot of clay which, when wet, gets very muddy).  But fortunately this fall and winter had been one of the driest on record.  Well, it WAS that way until Sunday, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The modules arrived from Washington on Monday.  It was a pretty quick trip, only about 3 hours (they took a shortcut recommended by Washington DOT).  We had a backhoe on standby in case we needed to help pull the trucks into place over the property.  Each module weighs 16-17 tons (31,000 to 35,000 pounds), and it was thought that they might get stuck in the mud.  Sunday’s rain wasn’t too heavy, but it was enough to make the grass slick, and we did wind up needing the backhoe to pull the truck and modules into place.

Boy, did we ever.

The delivery on Monday was supposed to take a couple of hours – that crew was here all day, as the wet grass made for lousy traction and extracting the trailers from under the house modules once in place took a very long time.  We expected Tuesday to be about the same, but the rains came again – almost an inch – and this turned the wet grass into a sea of mud.  What should have taken most of the day became a two-day affair simply because getting the modules from their spot on the field in position to slide onto the foundation took forever in the mud.  Amazingly, once in position they slid onto the foundation quickly.  They didn’t get to complete the “marriage” of the two halves until Wednesday (they did it early in the morning before we got there), but once joined together (for all eternity, we hope), things went smoothly.  Given the awful weather, the set crew did an awesome job (I’d hate to be the one to do their laundry).

From this point on there will be finishing work done around the holidays, so it’ll take longer than normal, which is nothing new with this project.  Drywall seam of the marriage line inside, electrical hookup, completion of flooring and painting, finishing the half of the garage not built yet, and we still have the solar installation to wait for (maybe next week?).  We expect that we should be ready to move in by the end of January.  Perhaps.  That’s the plan, anyway.

I started a channel on YouTube for my Modular Home videos – there are five in all

Three are at regular speed and show

•        The backhoe dragging the module through the wet grass on Day 1
•        The first module sliding onto the foundation (the “set”)
•        The second module moving through the mud thanks to the backhoe

The other two show “the complete day” as I recorded it (Day 1 transport and move, Day 2 position and set) but sped up to 8x fast (so it moves quickly).

You can see them here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdk0YlQ-JFnP7KafD0Hpozvof6CedCi8r

If you watch the two sped-up videos, the play-by-play follows at the end of the blog.  Know that I only shot video when something was happening – the reality was a very long day – both days – and there were many dull moments watching the crew talk about what they need to do before doing it (like a football game). 

BTW, I had to delete the audio, as it’s nothing but the roar of engines, rain, and grown men (and one woman) saying fairy inappropriate (and not-safe-for-work) things.

And here’s a picture of the two halves, together again for the first time on the foundation.  It’ll look much different (and better) in about six weeks.  

Weather permitting, of course.

Day One – Delivery Day

• The first module arrives, trying to navigate the narrow driveway of our neighbor in order to get behind the foundation on our property.
• It didn’t take long for the truck to get stuck on the wet grass, as the loose/wet soil made his tires spin (he was also going uphill a bit with 17 tons of house loaded).
• We see the first use of the backhoe to drag the truck and trailer (and house) back up on the driveway, where he could find more traction in the gravel and get into better position.  Moving about 30 feet took about 15 minutes.  Slow and steady wins this race. 
• About a half-hour later the first truck was up the driveway and the second module was almost in its “staying” position at the side of the foundation.
• Module one was able to back into position fairly easily, although we did need the backhoe.  From there the hydraulics of the truck lift the module up a bit so that the blocks can be set underneath, and the trailer pulled out.  THIS is where the backhoe was needed again, as there was very little clearance to get the trailer out from under the module.
• But an hour later both trailers were out and on their way back to Washington.

Day Two – Set Day

• We started out dry.  The module was loaded onto the crawler (which is remotely controlled) and backed into position next to the foundation.  This went pretty well.
• Soon the rain had begun, and it got harder as time went on.  The crew is setting the house on temporary jacks so that the crawler can drive off.  They are also assembling the rails that the house will travel from this point to its final location on the other side of the foundation.  This is actually the easiest and fastest part of the move.  Raining heavily now, and we’re just about to slide 17 tons 27 feet in 15 seconds.
• And here we go!
• Time for the second module to be moved into place, and it’s now raining like crazy.  The backhoe could only pull the module so far before IT was mired in the mud (no traction even with those huge tractor wheels).  So…they locked the backhoe in place and extended the arm, and then PULLED THE HOUSE using just the arm.  It looks awesome in the video.
• Not as awesome – the mud.  Note Willy’s (the foreman) pants – completely mud covered.  Also note that except for Jim, the backhoe operator, he’s the CLEANEST worker on site right now.

Day Three (the extra Set Day)

There’s no video, but the house was put on the foundation but not locked in at the end of Tuesday (too dark and rainy to finish the job), so they actually moved it back a bit today to get access to the protective covers on the inside of each module so they could remove it (white plastic, like what’s on the front of the garage here), then they moved the house back and “married” it to both the first module and the foundation.  Once that was done, they started to complete the setting operation (roofing, bolting the foundation, etc.).  No rain this day, so everything went pretty quickly!

Back At It (or, Free at last…almost)

Why yes, it’s been a while since my last post here.  There was a reason (several, actually) and several more for why I’m suddenly back at the keyboard.  Let’s catch up. 

My new favorite view from the not-yet completed new home

Back in…good grief, January?  Yeah, nearly eleven months ago I was writing about a potential government shutdown, complaining about the college football playoffs, and how the new tax break wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.  And then…nothing.  It’s not like much has changed, topic-wise, eh?  But that’s not why I stopped writing.  Well, not entirely.

Truth was, I knew that writing well takes time and that commodity was becoming scarcer than a qualified Chief of Staff candidate.  We had several irons in the fire that were carryovers from 2017 and we were determined to see them to fruition.  We were trying to sell our ice cream business, AND build a new home, AND sell our old house AND finally retire.  AND try to do all of this while still running the ice cream parlor.  We tried to do this in 2017 and made zero progress.  So starting up with a new builder AND a new campaign to sell the store, we made a pact in 2018 to devote ALL of our time (spare and otherwise) to make it all happen.

And we’re more than halfway there.

We DID sell, finally, in September.  Could not have found a better couple to take over.  We trained them for a couple of weeks, then stepped aside.  Truthfully, I think they were glad to get us out of the way.  I’ll have more to say about the sale in a future post (hassles before we found this couple and the unexpected “pang of regret” once sold).

We DID build a new home.  And then took it apart in order to move it.  See, it’s a modular home, built in Auburn, WA by Timberland Homes.  We spent a few months working with them to customize a smaller design of theirs (the Harborside) and added an attached garage where the covered porch was.  They just moved it onto our 2 acre parcel in Warren, OR where the completion process will take another 5-6 weeks.  We’re also adding a 12.4kw solar system, and the whole she-bang will be ready for move-in by the end of January.  The very next post will be about the move, and I’ll comment further about the process (some good, some bad, and several NSFW words about the bank and its financing practices).

We haven’t listed the house for sale, yet, but we DID do a lot of work getting it ready for sale.  We worried about this because usually Seaside has wet fall weather and we can never get out to do what we need to do when it’s nice because (a) we’re still working or (b) it’s raining like crazy.  Once we finished training the new folks, we experienced the BEST WEATHER EVER for October and most of November, so we got it all accomplished except for a few minor indoor projects.  This should go pretty smoothly and quickly once we list.  Of course, we’ve said that about every aspect on the business sale and the house construction and we’re 0-for, so we’re realistic.  But optimistic.  Eventually I’ll write about the house if nothing else but to advertising it for sale.  Besides being realistic and optimistic, I am opportunistic.

And with that, let me explain the last reason I stopped writing.  Subject matter.

While there was no shortage of material to be outraged about thanks to the current administration, it became mind-numbing and actually inhibited my ability to write.  I tried on more than one occasion to come up with a post about the latest “lowering the bar” or “outrage de jour” but I kept sounding like some grumpy old geezer.  While I AM a grumpy old geezer in real life, I try to keep a more-even keel here in the blog.  I didn’t like ANYTHING I wrote about, so I stopped trying to steal bits of precious time to come up with some witty-yet-relevant-spot-on commentary.  Frankly, those who thought like me had plenty of other bon-mots to enjoy elsewhere on the Interwebs, and those who didn’t share my concern for the worst Presidential Administration since James Buchanan were not going to suddenly vote blue (or give a rat’s ass), so…no loss for the last 11 months. 

For the foreseeable future, I’ve got plenty to write about without getting into the morass of that more-ass.  I may make the occasional foray back into political theater, but I plan to take a different approach.  For example, I have an upcoming post about the current stock market slide (don’t look now, but it’s right where it was about a year ago.  Actually, it’s a bit lower, and the trend ain’t lookin’ so good).  I really don’t plan to make it political in nature, but one might perceive it as such.  For the record, my wife and I got out of the market about the same time I stopped blogging.  Sadly, it was a few weeks later, and we wish we had done it a bit sooner.  So it goes.

For now, writing serves many purposes.  I can post personal news to the masses and save 50 cents postage that would otherwise get used up in letters.  It’s cathartic for me in a way (plus, I need the practice, as I’ve got two books planned once I am completely retired…soon).  And it keeps me active and away from playing solitaire (I still can’t play online poker, dammit).  Oh, I’ll write about that, too.

Welcome back.