Sidetracked Charley

Charley's Hideaway   I need to take new photographs. March 2021 was when I wasn't ready to open, but Russell, the handyman laying my floor, said you need to get listed in order to have bookings by Christmas. He has his own vacation rental so I decided to believe him. I ran into him yesterday and he asked how it was going. First I rented the week after I listed. In the midst of things I do not often stop and ask myself those sort of questions. To be utterly honest I figured I did not have to be wildly popular as a vrbo. For one I am five miles from the ski area so in my mind I had written off Ski Season when most other vacation rentals make all their money. Summer and Autumn will be mine. And that was fully booked. I will shut done during winter. Ha! Absolutely no open dates in December. Up to yesterday half of November was open and I had this list of improvements I was going to make. Had purchased materials and had them staged in my entry hall. I was wondering about ski racks ...

Bedroom number one at Charley's Hideaway   When I first began this project of turning my attached apartment into a short term rental I figured it would be mostly about money. Covid-19 caused the Governor to close down art studios as non-essential businesses. And so I had time on my hands. In the first few weeks last year I cancelled all my private lessons, Art Up cancelled all the fairs. Even Dog Gone park suffered as people cancelled month and longer trips that left their dogs with me. I would have been looking into mortgage forgiveness rules if I had not just a few months before refinanced my house and taken some cash out. Cash which was suppose to be used to beautify the the outside and maybe even buy a green house. Instead it went into paying the mortgage when I fell short. I started thinking about short. I began a policy of taking dogs just for the day - Dog Bark Camp. That was a bonus idea because it seemed those trapped at home with their dogs all day were looking for r...

Supposedly I am on the last lap of having my apartment ready for short term rental. I had a goal of being ready to take guests on the 1st of April. And per advice attempted a listing on AirBnB as of the 15th of March. Best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns.  After days of building my listing it still insisted it was in Taos, New Mexico. And nothing I could do got the attention of the site managers. Would have been frustrating enough without going through another virtual battle with Lowe's Building site to get a reasonably priced washer and dryer delivered. And then the plumbing issue. And Amazon failed me with their two day delivery schedule going to nine days on the little amenities required to please guests. Oh, did I mention the succession of snow storms. Whatever snow we didn't see in "real winter" we got shoved into a couple weeks in just before spring and after. I truly harbored thoughts of admitting this was stu...

Connected I confess. I will be 70 this summer. And one of the greatest things happened to me 13 years ago Christmas eve. I was involved in a ski accident which compressed three discs in my neck and knocked me into my right brain - literally. Witnesses to the accident said I was hit hard enough by a speeding skier to fly into the air and land on my head. The resultant closed brain trauma CBT or shaken baby head injury turned off my left brain control and let my right brain run completely free. It is why I paint, why I photo edit in such wild colors, and why I do not use manuals to learn technological devices. Hell, I confess, I cannot read manuals any more. Once when I was a technical writer I wrote them. I translated accountants to computer programmers and computer programmers to management. Boy, that wasn't easy. Since the head injury I have adapted to digital cameras, digital post processing programs, laptops, tablets, and my latest, the ipod. And all without cracking a ...

Everyone raves about Amazon.com but I have had nothing but grief from that site. Even my good experiences seem to be peppered with headache. I always have to reset my password even though my computer remembers it. And they always split my orders even when I click that little box that tells them not to so I can save on shipping charges. Last time when I ordered a DVD that they had to back order they kept billing my account even though they said they wouldn't until they shipped. We argued on that over the telephone three times. Then when I got the DVD it was flawed and would not play. I will never go through the return process gauntlet again! Or the calls to get them to take the charge off my account after I returned it. But all I figured I just wanted four books. Total cost of books $33 and change. I will be paying $54 because of the multiples of shipping charges at $3.99 a time. I went looking for the Contact Us option on their website. They hide that. My sister finally found it fo...