I Always Wondered

We’ve all seen those big metals storage pods that people use when they’re moving or just have things they need to find a place to keep  for a while, and I always wondered how they moved them around. Did they use some giant forklift to load the pods onto the back of a flatbed truck, and take the forklift with them when they delivered it? Well, now I know.

Our friends Jesse and Jennifer’s longtime friends Dennis and Tami just moved to Florida from New Hampshire. They had a bunch of stuff put in a storage pod and brought down here, and until they get moved into their own place, they were going to put the pod in Jesse and Jennifer’s small front yard. But we have what seems like an acre of concrete parking apron in front of our place, along with the driveway on the side street, and we told them rather than letting the pod tear up their grass, to just have the driver drop it at our place. That way it would be more convenient for them to get to with a pickup and load it when they were moving everything to their new place.

The truck arrived yesterday afternoon with the pod and backed into our place.

Then the driver deployed a cool lift system with four sets of wheels to raise the pod off the back of the truck.

With the pod in the air, he drove the truck out from under it, put down some spacers to protect the driveway, and lowered the pod down onto them.

It’s only 8 by 8 feet, so it isn’t going to take up a whole lot of room. When that was done, he put the lift back onto the truck and was ready to leave. The whole thing only took a few minutes, and I learn something new. It’s always good to learn at least one new thing every day, right?

Besides watching the pod being delivered, I worked on making corrections to the last three chapters of my new book most of the day yesterday. Then, about 6 o’clock Terry and I went to Boston’s Fish House in New Smyrna Beach for dinner. I thought it might be busy, being the weekend, and while they definitely had a lot of customers, we were seated almost immediately and had a very nice dinner. We started out with Thai Thai Shrimp appetizers, then Terry had the blackened grouper dinner, while I went with grilled shrimp. Yes, I do love shrimp, and it was delicious. Terry’s grouper filet was huge and she gave me some of it to try, and it was excellent. I might have to go for that the next time we’re at Boston’s.

I will be printing out those last chapters of Big Lake Ranger for Terry to edit and proofread today, then sending them off to my second and third proofreaders. I said in yesterday’s blog that there were things happening in this new book that were going to change some characters’ lives forever. Terry, Judy, and Roberta have all proofread those chapters now, and the response from all three of them was just one word, Wow! I’m looking forward to sharing the book with you soon.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Scandal, the fifth book in my Big Lake mystery series. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – I was going to cook alligator for dinner but realized I only have a crockpot.