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Monthly Archives: July 2019

What’s Going On?

It’s always a good idea to give an update on our doings every so often. Sometimes you forget that everyone is off doing their bits for their business when you don’t see any big projects going on. So!

Cameron Office

Over in Cameron, now that the last few repairs are finished on the Washington house, we expect to actually close on it soon. That will make us all happy, including the new buyers!

18 Sarita RD

We may have a buyer for this one!

And the house on Travis, where Mandi used to live, should also close pretty soon, make that really soon. I’m looking forward to meeting the new owners and seeing what their plans are. I also wish I knew the schedule for things, but my job is social media, not the buying and selling!

Lee has been working to sell his brother’s house in the Brazosport area, and met with an investor on that yesterday. I’ll let him write up something, but he did tell me that he really liked the people, since their model was a lot like ours. That makes them easy to work with, since they also want a better life for everybody.

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Air Conditioning? Yes please!

How’s the weather where you live? Here in the heart o’ Texas, it’s the usual hotness level for late July. That has made working in the office in Cameron an interesting proposition for us, because the downstairs air conditioning and heat are not functional (upstairs works fine).

This is a lot like the one we have.

We’ve been limping along in the basement by keeping the upstairs from getting too hot, so it won’t radiate down, installing fans in each of our offices, and using a dehumidifier. That thing does a great job of making it feel cooler without changing the actual temperature. It only takes a couple of hours for it to extract a full tank of water from the air, and I think the tank holds two gallons (maybe one). I highly recommend this solution, which will let you set your air conditioner higher yet keep you comfortable.

We lucked out one day when Lee tried the ancient wall unit in the conference room and discovered it still worked. So, when we are in the office, that thing blasts out cool air that eventually leaks out into the main area. It helps, at least.

A More Permanent Solution

Thankfully, now that a few properties have sold, we have some funds to work on the Hermit Haus building. Most assuredly, improving the air conditioning situation was number 1 on our to-do list.

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Another Accounting Software Rant

Screen shot with the "Give Feedback" button grayed out.

This screenshot exemplifies the Quickbooks Online customer experience. The feedback button is grayed out and nonfunctional. It’s there only for show.

Do you use Quickbooks Online (QBO) for your business? If so, I can only offer my deepest sympathy.

If you are at the medium tier of “service,” you may also be among the group of hosta customers who recently noticed their service level abruptly downgraded in a blatant attempt to force you into the top tier (most expensive) service plans. Intuit (who owns QBO) suddenly placed “usage limits” on your chart of accounts. Then they assigned accounts in the least intuitive, seemingly random manner to either:

  • Reduce your usage level by closing the account
  • Close the account without reducing your usage level

My experience was that the more likely an account was to be temporary, the more likely it was to fall into the nonreduction bucket. Continue reading →

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More About Solar

Sue Ann recently posted about whether or not installing solar panels makes economic sense—spoiler alert: it doesn’t; it’s more of a religious or magical decision than an economic one. So, I thought I’d spend some words (as few as possible) to describe the installation process with pictures. And even though a picture may be worth a thousand words, I’m not going to take that truism to the Ikea extreme. Sometimes you need words to understand the pictures.

Site Prep

a man runs a gas powered trencher

Our grid interface is dozens of yards from the building where the panels are to be installed. A trencher made short work of digging the trench. Okay, it took more than an hour, but that is much faster than digging an 18-inch deep trench by hand—especially through the compacted road base that makes up our driveway. The original trench for the power and water connections were about 36 inches, so there was little risk that we would cut power to the house.
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How’s the Cameron Market? And Why?

We have a courthouse! And a square!

I’ve been thinking about this, since my personal observations don’t mesh with stereotypes I keep hearing. You may have in your mind that small towns are dying and a pretty flat market. That may be changing, though, as people get more and more tired of traffic and the frenetic pace of life in cities.

Another factor I’ve observed that encourage people to relocate to more rural locations is being able to work from home. I’m a prime example of that. While I’m in a big city during the week, I’m able to spend half my time in my rural home, thanks to having the option and needed infrastructure to work from outside the office when I want to. My friend Mike, who just moved to Cameron a few months ago, is in the same position. This setup requires access to GOOD internet connections, though, and that has slowed down a lot of people who want to live in a small town our rural spot. Finally it’s becoming a priority for service providers, though, as they realize not everyone out in the boonies lives in a cabin with dirt floors and no electricity.

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