Who The Heck are You? Tell Your Behind The Beard Stories

Well I am married for 21 years to a beautiful woman who is my best friend. We have four children from 15 to 25 and 2 Grandchildren 9 weeks and almost 2. I have worked in trucking my entire life first for my father for 25 years and now my own small Company for 3 years.

I like cars, have done some professional racing including running with Jimmie Johnson for 2 years in the ASA stock car series. Have a 2002 911 turbo with 640 rwhp that I take to the road course and my 2011 Cadillac CTS-V with 630 rwhp that I take to the dragstrip. The Caddy ran 10.7 at 128mph.

I use to do powerlifting and still enjoy lifting weights.

I never drove OTR just local when I first started for my dad. I still have a CDL, I have great respect for long haul drivers it is a tough job. We run 55 trucks and 130 trailers and have a good core of drivers. Just a blip compared to my dad's company which had 2200 trucks and 5000 trailers!

I own the Company, yes you would know my dad's company.

I have to work along time before I can retire! LOL

Brandon - Thanks for that info on yourself. For one I think you have your act together young man.
You got married at a very young age. Most things are against you, especially when children are
involved. You have your own home, a good job and number 3 on the way. I live in Tennessee and
our tree trimmers make some decent money. An older man around here with less than a high school
education started out as a tree trimmer, that evolved into his own company. He is now retired
and he is worth over 1,000,000 dollars. If you manage your life as described, maybe you could
learn your skills where you are and work on getting your own crew and of course all of the
equipment. When the local power company trimmed our trees here I was home. I was with the crew
the whole time. They had their procedure and I asked if they could trim differently then their
prescribed procedure. They listened to my ideas and did EVERYONE of them. They did such a nice
job I called up the power company and thanked them for having such a great crew. They were a
hired crew, so I then had to call up the company that the crew worked for. I did so, I was
impressed with how they worked with me. Do you do that also? It really makes the homeowner
feel so much better as I can attest. All I ever heard were horror stories about these power crews.
I say poppycock!!! At least with me I have an excellent experience.

One bit of advice from an old man. (58) If you can afford it, please pay an extra amount each
month towards your principal on your mortgage. My mortgage was around 750 a month. I sent an
additional 100 a month. On a 30 mortgage that extra payment will make that around a 20 year or so
mortgage. Once you get use to the extra payment you will not even notice it.

Where do you live? Do you have acreage? Do you have a garden? If so do you grow some vegetables?
There is nothing like home grown tomato's. Those store bought tomato's are just horrible.

What do you hunt? Do you eat your bounty? I hunted once and it was boring to me. Plus I am way
to fidgety. I do like to fish. How can a man not like to fish, you get to sit, move around,
drink beer, have conversation, and maybe a fish will find your hook!!! Not bad in my book.

Glad you are here and that was nice story about yourself.

Well Done

Keith

Well our mortgage is 1173 and it's pretty close to our max budget we do however want to send in our tax return towards the principal each year. Great advice!
I hunt deer, though I've never been successful, I still love it! I have eaten the rabbit and grouse I've shot. I'm a firm believer to use what you kill. Don't kill it unless it serves you a purpose. IE shooting sage rats to help the alfalfa farmers. I fish for bass and trout. We have awesome steelhead and salmon fishing here but I've never tried.
If a homeowner wants their tree done a certain way and we can make it within our guidelines we absolutely work with them, though most times the homeowners aren't even around and if they are they know what to expect and let us do the work. Some even bring out food and drinks. One lady brought us cookies and hot chocolate one day and coffee cake the next!

I've done some side work for friends but seeing as climbing gear is about 3-600 for a full set of basic gear it's kinda outta my range right now.
Tree trimmers here make a varied wage. My yard is union and follows the union scale of pay, I make around 22 an hour and here that's pretty good for no college education.
Some guys who work for the companies that service multiple utilities make between 10-18 and hour and the guys who work for the utility themselves "in house" can make like 35-45 an hour. That's the goal! I work for a company contracted through Eugene's power company. wright tree service, were a big company but in my area we are EWEB exclusive.

I do not have much land. Just a normal 1/8th acre lot. Our home was built in 1915 and it's awesome. There is a vacant lot behind me and it's owned by the parents of the people we bought our house from. They have told us we can "use" the lot as we want to and are figuring out a final price for us to buy it. Although I doubt we can really afford it. Though it would make my lot amazing. Right now my yard is tiny. I take the dogs out back to play though cause it's a nice big lot.
We have a 3 legged 3 month old german shorthaired pointer, a 4 month old chocolate lab and 2 chi weenies.

I need that back lot

Here are some old ones of the lab and german. Just a few weeks old or so.





I have sad news today. As of right now we are no longer expecting our 3rd child. She miscarried this weekend at 6 weeks. She would like to try again as soon as her body is ready. So maybe we will. This has been a hard weekend.