Location, Location, Location

Somebody a whole lot smarter than me developed a business strategy around the basic concept of Location, Location, Location. I'm not sure who came up with that but I'm thinking it was either Henry Ford, JC Penny, Yogi Berra or Ronald McDonald. The point is that the thought came into play for Big Red on Friday at the Bland County Fairgrounds for the Bland County Relay for Life.

This is a fairly small venue in a small town in southwestern Virginia. You know one of those counties that you can spit and it could land in one of 4 states. The Relay is layed out in a field where the organizers have created about an 1/8 mile track where the walkers go around. The various teams have tents set up around the outside circumference of the track where they raise additional funds for the American Cancer Society by selling food, drinks, face painting, games, etc. There is also an area that would be considered a stage for entertainment, speakers, and announcements.

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Last year, Big Red was set up right on the track so that everyone walking passed by the service window literally hundreds of times. They could stop, grab a lemonade and keep on walking.  Last year, we had a big day, one of the best Relays I've done, especially with lemonade. Of course, my funnel cakes are always popular.

This year, the organizers had me set up in a different location as they had several inflatibles for the kids where I was last year. I was sort of behind the team tents, not on the track at all. And the only folks that walked by were on their way to the bathrooms.

The end result was that my sales were less than half of last year's with what seemed to me like more people in attendance. And, I sold less than 2 gallons of lemonade.  A very disappointing effort for Big Red. That old adage, Location, Location, Location was certainly proven in Bland County, whoever said it!

I'm off to Woodbridge this week for a 7 game home stand of the Potomac Nationals. I'm taking Big Red up to replace the tent set up in the courtyard near the main gate and adjacent to the main concession stand. The tent set up will be moved near third base so we'll be operating two locations for the four days of the 4th weekend. Tank and Laura will run one location, Chuck, Ryan and I the other. Justin, Christina, and Mike will fill in where needed.

It should be interesting. While it won't make up for losing the Pfish concert, it should be a huge weekend for Big Red.

Big Dogs, Baseball, and Horrible Weather

As most of you know, I've just returned from 17 days on the road, mostly from a PNat home stand that was 14 games. It all started on the 6th with the first game, I worked them thru Thursday with the help of Christine and Justin, two new members of the Big Red Team. One game was rained out.

Tank and Laura came up for Friday and Chuck and Ryan worked Saturday along with Christine and Justin. Laura had to be back in Lynchburg for her school's graduation. It rained at some point during all 3 games but at least, they were played.

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I set up Big Red on Thursday up in the mountains near Gore, VA for the Big Dogs Offroad Spring Fling and opened on Friday for breakfast. It was my first effort with Big Dogs and I wasn't sure what to expect. And I wasn't entirely sure how to plan as I was cooking for up to 500 people 3 meals per day for the weekend. Jean and Gene brought their motorhome up and helped.

It turned out to be a pretty good event and even though I ran out of barbeque on Saturday night, it went well. They have already asked me to do another event in Richmond in August so I must have done OK.

Big Dogs is a group of crazy people that take their offroad vehicles along various trails through the mountains, run through mud and climb rocks. There are different groups that start off each morning depending on the experience level of the driver and vehicle. I stayed back in the campground!!!!

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Seriously, they were a great group and suprisingly came from virtually every walk of life. My mistaken first impression was that I would be dealing with a bunch of redneck beer swilling partyers. And I was totally wrong. Probably as many professional folks as any "class". And, yes, they partied at night just like I do. Saturday night also featured one of the biggest bonfires I've ever seen and a big celebration giving away something like $17,000 worth of door prises.

It was a fun weekend.

Meanwhile, back in Woodbridge, the crew had a decent weekend despite a bunch of rain. I was back there for Monday's game. Tuesday was rained out and Wednesday was Hell-day with 3500 middle school kids. Chuck and Ryan came back for that day and joined Justin and me. We got slammed.

Tank and Laura came back up on Friday for another rained out game. Saturday was good, not great for a double header and then came the crushing blow. Sunday, Father's Day was called off after a massive storm during the night screwed up the field. That would have been one of our best days of the summer. So, basically, the weather cost me about $2,500 between Friday and Sunday.

On top of that, Big Red suffered another massive set back as I ran into problems with the New York Dept of Taxation. They now need 21 business days to issue their business license and my application for the Pfish concert wasn't submitted in time. This one hurt as we were set to take a crew to Watkins Glen of 17 people for the first week of July. Unfortunately, it is not like this in any other state I've been in. My fault, but.... 21 business days to issue a license is ridiculous.

To make up for some of that, we're going to run two locations at the Pfitz for that weekend. It should increase my PNat sales plus we'll give much better service and hopefully eliminate some of the long lines we've had there the past 4th of July weekends.

This weekend, I take Big Red to the Bland County Relay for Life on Friday. That was a really good event for me last year so I'm looking for a busy time. I head back to Woodbridge on Wednesday for 7 games including the 4th.  Please weatherman, give me a break this time.

Mixed Reviews for End of May

The last week of May was clearly one of the most confusing weeks of the year, but ended strong with major successes on Saturday and Sunday at Woodbridge.

I worked the first three games of the long homestand (Mon, Tue and Wed) by myself. Monday was good but not more than I could handle, Tuesday was awful and Wendesday was so-so. After the game Wednesday night, I drove back to the farm to pick up Big Red and load for the country music show featuring Ty Herndon at Meadow Events Park on Saturday. I left early Friday morning, set up Red and drove on to Woodbridge for Game 4 on Friday night.

The game started off strong with a great pre--game, especially with lemonade. Then, just about the time for the National Anthem, a major storm hit with heavy lightening, strong winds (45-60mph) and hard rain. Tornado warnings were issued, the stadium lost power and the game was called. My tent was trashed.

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After Tank, Mike and I cleaned up, I drove to Harrisonburg and spent the night at Peggy's. Saturday morning we were off early as the gates opened at MEP at 2PM and we had to prep everything as I was offering a full menu. At 2, the gates opened to three cars. By 3, there were maybe 10 cars. The concert started at 4 and by the time the headliner came on, there was maybe 300 people, including staff. Needless to say, it was a dog.

I really fell bad as I like Anthony and Joe, my Savor contacts, alot and neither of the shows I've done at MEP have been successful. They still haven't seen what we can do with the right traffic.

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Peggy and I cleaned up and packed up Big Red and headed for Woodbridge to work the Sunday game (now a double header) with Tank and Mike.

Meanwhile, Tank, Mike, Caleb, Chuck and Ryan worked Game 5 Saturday night, also a double header. Only they had a great night featuring over 30 gallons of lemonade and a decent amount of funnel cakes.

Sunday, to end the homestand, we did almost 40 gallons of lemonade but not many funnel cakes. So it was a good day, but clearly not a great one. Still, the month ended strong thanks to the PNat games. 

Back at the farm, the pool is open for the year and yesterday, I even got in the water. In the past, rarely have a deemed the water warm enough until July 4th, but the 100 degree days made it a necessity. Despite my protests and complaints, it felt pretty good.

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This morning I got up early to do the pool vacuuming. After I finished, I went into the pool house to backwash and rinse the filter. I flipped the switch off, reset the filter to backwash and reached for the switch to turn it back on. I wondered why Gene had put an old black rubber soaker hose that I had accedently run over with the John Deere, in the corner around the switch to the pool filter. As I thought this, the hose wrapped around my arm and about a 47 ft snake slithered into an old wash tub we have hanging on the wall. I messed my pants!

Seriously, after my heart rate got back to normal, I asked Oscar, that is his name, (and the grandson of Big Oscar who haunted our Chicken House from when Georgia was a prison colony until about four years ago) if he'd like to take a swim. Thankfully, he declined. Big Oscar was over 8 ft when we went to the snake pit in the sky.

I haven't been back in the pool house.

Monday starts the longest homestand I've seen at Pfitzner Stadium--14 games. Plus, on the weekend I'm cooking for the Big Dog Event near Winchester where I'll be serving 500 people 3 meals per day. Plus, on the 15th, there's something like 4,400 kids scheduled. It will be a busy two weeks.