Archives for August 2020

Hand Sanitizer Blowout | The RV adventure continues | Cisco RCKMNT-1RU Rack Kit

Happy Monday!  

Welcome to the CablesAndKits CEO daily email. Read more about this email by scrolling to the very bottom. 

Well I’ve had quite an adventure in the last few days, and particularly Sunday. I’ve continued my hunt of a motorhome and settled on a couple brands and models within a certain age and miles range. I found what seemed to be the perfect unit at a fantastic price that was a few hours away. I called and had a great conversation with the owner and ended up going to look at it last Wednesday. While I expected to need to do some repairs, the quantity of them really started to pile up fast. It was a good bit below market value – way more than the repairs would cost, so I kept pondering on it.  

I was nearly willing to pull the trigger when I saw the exact same unit on RVTrader for a tad more money but without all the issues. It had a little wrong here and there but it was being offered by a dealer and they were going to make the repairs. Great! It was in Utah though, which is a 28 hour drive in a normal car, so quite a long trip in an RV but I thought ”hey, a person buying a motorhome had better be willing to drive distances!” Ha.  

I haggled a deal by phone, and got them to agree to let me sleep in the RV for a night when I arrived. They said they’d never had anyone ask that before and that I’d be locked in the fence with the guard dog. Sounded cool to me!  

I booked my flight on Sat afternoon for Sunday evening. I planned to fly out at 8pm, arrive at 10pm with the time change, grab a hotel, and then head over Monday to begin my inspection and overnight stay.  

My wife had been resistant to this whole plan until I made an executive family decision to get one, and said that if we hated it we could sell. After that she started pondering the whole thing and next thing I know she is showing me yet another unit on RVTrader late Sat night. It was even BETTER than the one in UT. It was even more than the previous one but was worth the difference hands down. Trouble is I’d already put down a $1000 non-refundable deposit and bought a plane ticket to Utah.  

Nevertheless, it was better enough that it was worth exploring. And, it was in Florida – much closer! I spoke with the owner Sun afternoon and told him I had a one way ticket to UT that NIGHT. He told me everything I needed to know, described all the updates that had been done, and even had a pull behind SUV for sale as well, which we also wanted. The fact that it was already setup and ready to go was a huge bonus. 

We started haggling price via text and there were long delays between responses. I figured he was pondering or talking to his wife but it turned out he was on business calls (on a Sunday?). We still were not talking the same language on price and I was already driving to the airport. I texted that I would change my flight from Salt Lake to Orlando if we could agree. We were close on price so I went ahead and asked if he’d mind if I diverted my flight to Orlando.  

He didn’t reply quickly, but I was half way to the airport and needed to make a decision. I decided to take a chance and change my flight to Orlando. I’d deal with the deposit / Salt Lake unit later. I pulled up the delta app to look for a change flight option. “Your upcoming flight will allow check in 24 hours prior to departure”. Wait, what? I HAD BOOKED THE FLIGHT IN OCT!!