July, 2008 Choosing To Commit To Marriage or Storage
Have you been dating someone for several months? Maybe several years? Is this the person you want to be with forever? And here is the big question, are you ready for marriage?
It is hard to know sometimes if you are ready for this huge step in life. It could possibly be one of the biggest decisions you will always make. And with divorce more and more prevalent, it is important to know up front, before you walk down the aisle, if you are 100 percent certain about your choice. Nobody wants to say I do thinking that they will say never mind within a few years time.
Brett had most of his belongings in long term storage when he met his girlfriend Tanya. He had had them in long term storage for quite a while. All through college they had been in long term storage , and even afterward he had kept them there while he tried to start his career. When he met Tanya, however, it was only a matter of months before he thought he wanted to get his stuff out of long term storage and put it in a house somewhere and settle down. Was he truly ready for this step, though, he asked himself? There were several things he had to think about before he decided.
First, he asked himself why he wanted to get married. He tried writing a list of the good and bad things he saw in Tanya. He knew that if they were even close to even, he should second guess this decision. But when he was done, he found that the good outweighed the bad by far.
Second, Brett remembered his mother telling him that if he was not comfortable speaking with the person about marriage, then it was probably not the right time to pursue it. He asked himself it he would be willing to speak openly about the possibility of marriage being in their future with Tanya, and he decided he could. He trusted that she would be honest with him about what she thought, and tell him upfront if she was not ready yet. Even with this as a possibility, he felt confident that there would be no awkwardness or hard feelings.
Bretts father had told him that he had to learn to deal with whatever history that Tanya might have, whether it related to past relationships, past mistakes she had made, or even with her family, which could possibly be Bretts family as well someday. If Brett was willing to first, learn her history, and second, take it in stride and forgive anything that needed forgiveness, he would be on a great path to marriage. Bretts father told him that if you can do this for a person, you most likely love them enough for marriage to have a good chance.
Lastly, Brett knew from experience with previous relationships that he had to know himself well before he could pursue such a large step. He had to know what he expected from a person, and had to let that person know, so that there would be no surprises after it was all said and done.
In the end, Brett did get to pull his stuff from long term storage and find a nice apartment for he and Tanya to live in. And he was not even that bitter when she made him junk half of it because it did not go with her decorating style!
posted by Self Storage Owner July 04, 2008 7:41 | permalink | General Forget Your Routine And Go Treasure Hunting
The next time you have a minute, you should take a stroll around your community. Some times we do not realize what is inside our own community until we are actually looking for it. Most towns or cities have an historic downtown area where most of the older businesses are known. Most times people visit the historic areas or downtown areas for the atmosphere or the nice people that are at those businesses.
It is just comical sometimes for people to wonder where to eat or play. The same old where do you want to eat banter back and forth and when they look at the yellow pages, they see a lot more options than they had a couple of hours ago. It is sure that you can find whatever you desire if you just pay attention. Many times people say that there is nothing to do in their town, but most of the time they do not know what is going on in their town.
Now here is a game for you. Walk through each room of your house. Next, walk to your garage, if you have one. Is your garage used for the purposed it was created for? When you walked around your house and looked in all the rooms, did you need everything that you saw or is it just taking up space?
You might get an idea in your mind thinking that you need to do something with all these extra things that you do not really need in your everyday life. Most people try to use garage sales or the classified ads to get rid of some of their unwanted belongings. Also many people try to sell the items on the internet and hope to turn a big profit. Unfortunately it does not always work that way. That is why some people search for personal storage .
When you are looking for personal storage , what arenas are you going to search for it? You might not realize but if you drove around your community more and kept your eyes open, you will see that you have a personal storage opportunity closer to you than you think? When looking for personal storage if you do your research well you can find a pretty good deal.
Of course all that matter is that you have a place that is close to you that if you miss your belongings you can go visit them. Some places even have twenty four hour access to your space. So if you miss your stuff at two oclock in the morning you can hop in your car and go see it.
Now we are not trying to make fun of the people who just will not part with the items that they decide to hold on for years that is collecting dust. At some point you are going to have to let that stuff go, find a personal storage lot to keep a roof over their heads.
You can never know what you will find when you are driving around your community. There is an ice cream shop two miles from you, but you decided to go to the place you knew that was across town. From what you hear it is a great place to get some ice cream from. All you had to do was take a left turn instead of the right turn you take everyday. You might realize a whole knew world of things to do and places to see if you deviate from your routine every now and then. You might even find that inexpensive, and secure personal storage lot in which you can put a pot of gold.
Have you ever wondered what the rules are for storing your items in one of those professional storing facilities? You see them all the time as you drive to work. People seem to use them for car storage , parking RVs and boats. And whats more, those large mysterious doors leave your imagination to run wild as you ponder what could be behind them.
Perhaps a car collector has hidden his completely restored classic hot rod in his car storage lot. Maybe a stamp collector has rented a hundred square feet of climate controlled air to keep his hobby secure. Perhaps some vandals are hiding stolen loot. What if the answer to the citys latest crime wave lies dormant behind that big roll up door?
At the thought of that, your mind begins to trail down more criminal paths and you wonder just what is not allowed in those places.
To put your mind at ease, there is a long list of things one may not store and there are precautions to guard against unsafe storing conditions. Items that are not eligible for storing may include, but are not limited to the following.
Dogs
Cats
Snakes
Your insect collection
Pets or any living animals, you get the idea.
Deceased dogs, cats, pets or any formerly-living animals, you get the idea.
Containers of perishable food
Old jalopies or broken cars for car storage , the place is not a junk yard.
Kerosene
Gasoline, as tempting as it would be to stock up while gas is still as cheap as 4 dollars per gallon.
Flammable chemicals
Acidic chemicals which may cause harm to the structure or air quality.
Fireworks, the sale after the Fourth Of July cannot be stored in a 5x5 locker, it is hazardous!
Immensely valuable jewels, these are better under the safe guard of a safety deposit box.
Trash
Cold, hard cash, also better kept in the bank or deposit box.
Bio-hazardous waste materials
Stolen cars in need of a good car storage hideout
Chop shop parts taken from stolen cars
Firearms
Ammunition
Weaponry
Legal vegetation, no living plant life
Illegal vegetation, no living or dried plant life
Radioactive material
Paint
Illegal Drugs, however legal pharmaceutical reps often store inventory in such a facility.
Stolen goods
Other people (living or deceased)
Human body parts, although there was a horror story circling the news a year ago about a man who lost the contents of this store room in an auctions due to non-payment. His severed leg was among the contents of the unit.
Poison
Explosives
Extremely valuable collections, it is a financial risk if you lose the contents in an accident on the premises. Purchasing insurance to cover the risk is ideal.
Evidence from a legal investigation
Items that exceed the weight limit. If your unit is not on the ground floor, you may put the facility at structural risk. Believe it or not, there was a story earlier this year of a facility in Brooklyn, New York that partially collapsed due to a unit where an enormous amount of chopsticks were stored. The wooden utensils became like 10 tons of bricks and fell through the floor.
Many people were affected in the surrounding units and the city had to use forks for a month.
As you can see, your imagination can run wild as to what you or others might want to hide away in a store room or car storage lots. Unfortunately for criminal minds, the storing industry has already safeguarded against illegal actions occurring on their property. Many urban facilities have limited access hours and all of them are locked behind a security gate for each tenant to enter a PIN number.
The good news is that the rest of us law abiding citizens are safe to keep our grandmas furniture in a space or our prized collector car in car storage . The list of what one could put in a store room is endless.
posted by Self Storage Owner July 02, 2008 6:56 | permalink | General Picking A College? Consider The Storage Space
Nathan was a senior in high school and he knew that it was time to choose a college at last. He had put it off because he realized the enormous decision that it was, and now he knew he had to sit down and begin getting serious about his choice. But what to look for? And what things did he need to consider most important when he was looking for a college? These were the questions that he asked himself initially.
Nathans mother told him that the best thing he could do was to decide the major he thought he would be interested in, and then go from there. Nathan had always imagined that he might like to go into something like education, as he had always loved working with children. So from this decision on, things started to go a bit more smoothly. He and his mother did research online of the schools that had good education programs, and he sent off for information through the mail from the specific colleges that he thought would interest him the most for one reason or another. Nathan was amazed at what he could find online about schools, and the user friendly sites that made it so simple to navigate and find the information he was seeking quickly.
When Nathan had narrowed his choice of college down to about fifteen based on their education programs, his mother told him now he would have to begin looking at different criteria for the process of elimination. She said perhaps the next thing to do was to think about what region he would like to be in. Did he intend to stay close to home? Or did he want to be somewhere new and far away? Nathan thought he might like to stay close to home. Part of this was based on the fact that he knew that if he remained close to home, he could use his parents garage storage for his excess belongings that he would not be able to take along with him. He knew that whether he chose to live on campus or live in an apartment, it was unlikely that he would have garage storage in his apartment or rental that would be anything like what his parents garage storage was like. And most likely he would have no garage storage option at all where he would go to live. It was best to use his parents garage storage temporarily, and therefore find a college close to home where he could access his belongings if he needed to.
Now his choice was down to about eight. Nathans next step was speaking with the counselors at each of these eight colleges. When he had done this, he found that now he had an even closer and more in depth view of what these colleges would be like, and what they could offer him as far as the education program and just in general. All of these things made a difference in his ultimate choice. He also found that his choice was swayed by how quickly these counselors got back to him with his important questions, and how friendly they were when they did so. He knew in the back of his head that if these counselors, who were representatives of the school, were this friendly and active on his behalf, the school itself would most likely have more to offer.
Based on these and many more criteria, Nathan made his choice at last, and ended up being very happy with it.
posted by Self Storage Owner July 01, 2008 6:26 | permalink | Self Storage CustomerJune, 2008 Growing Your Small Business
Lisa was a small business owner, but she needed something to help jump start her career. She was excited about owning her own business. She had wanted to do so for years. But now that it had finally happened, she felt lost at time as to how to really get the wheels in motion for reaching the goals she had for her business.
She decided that she needed to really sit down and begin thinking about what goals she actually had, and how she could get there. This was an important step in the process, actually. Merely thinking of what your goals are is a good start, but it is definitely not all there is to it. You have to know how you will reach that goal, by what pathway or action you will get there. This is part of seeing it in your head and then translating it into an actual action and fact.
First of all, Lisa knew that she had to begin organizing things the way she needed them to be for her small business. She had an excess of products that her temporary shop would not have adequate room for at present. She decided to invest in commercial storage for the time being so that she would have a place for her extra products and they would not clutter up her store.
Choosing commercial storage temporarily was a good step, Lisa felt, in reaching her goal of making her shop more presentable. Though it was a small goal, Lisa knew that it was the small goals that led to the bigger ones, and her choice of commercial storage satisfied her as being the most effective decision at the moment. What was more was that the commercial storage she decided to go with for her needs, had a special plan that met her temporary demand for its services, and she would not have to worry about long term costs, etc. for the commercial storage .
Another way that Lisa found was highly effective in setting her business goals was to write it out. She wrote out every goal, even the small ones, which she wanted to reach within the next several months, and she wrote the time by which she wanted to achieve them. She was as specific as she could be about each goal. When she was through with this, she bought a calendar that she used exclusively for the purpose of writing down her goals.
She wrote the goals she wanted to reach on the dates of the calendar that she wanted to reach them by. This gave her a visual, every day reminder of what she needed to do, as well as giving her inspiration for the new things she found she needed to accomplish. Every time Lisa came up with a new goal she needed to reach, she added it to her list, and wrote it on her calendar, which hung right next to her desk for maximum visibility. Such a simple thing, but Lisa found that it was one of the most important aspects in giving her the motivation and encouragement she needed to accomplish her goals.
Lisa knew that this would be a long process, especially for something like a small business. These goals were individual goals as well as business goals, and she knew she had to have patience when waiting for them to come about.
posted by Self Storage Owner June 30, 2008 6:26 | permalink | General Responsible Self Storage Customers
Self storage customers have to take many things into consideration when they are planning about the means of keeping their goods. The numbers of options for them are limited to either putting their goods in the backyard or their friendly neighbors place. Some of them who are blessed to have a building with a spacious garage might put their goods in it. But these storing options are not viable for everyone. Hence it makes sense if they put away their extra goods in the various commercial utilities that are found in every town. These utilities charge a small amount and in lieu of the same, they offer their clients a decent space to put away their goods in.
It is essential for the self storage customers to comprehend the basic requirements that the facilities chosen by them should offer. The location of the unit that will be offering them cargo space should be situated close to their office or residence. There are countless occasions when people stash away regularly used items in these warehouses and when they require the same, there is no option left, apart from going to the unit and retrieving the goods. This is a painful chore if the unit is far away from them. An ideal unit should be located somewhere in between their residence and office. This makes it easy for them to retrieve their goods without spending extra money in traveling costs and eliminates unnecessary travel time spent in traffic.
Another cardinal mistake that most self storage customers make is to wait till the last moment to book their warehouses. One should remember that during certain times of the year, especially during the holidays and warmer months, lots of people travel or relocate from one location to another. Hence it is difficult to find a cargo house, and far less likely is finding one near your residence or office. People should plan well in advance, especially if they are sure about their shifting schedule. Reserving a cargo space at least two week in advance is a good rule of thumb. It makes sense to book the cargo unit well in advance if you are planning to relocate during the peak holiday season. They might have to pay extra amount for a month or so, but the same can be compensated by the discounts offered for long periods of warehousing. There are times of the year when it becomes difficult to find even an iota of space in any unit. Plan well in advance and there shall be no headaches.
Responsible self storage customers should plan and know well in advance the amount of space that will be required to keep their goods. They should pack all their goods in small containers. This way they will have no problems calculating the amount of space that will be needed to keep their goods in. They should also book a space that is slightly bigger than their requirements.
If they make a quick calculation of the extra money required for that extra space, they will realize that it is peanuts compared to the headaches they will have to face if the space they have booked turns out to be smaller than what is required. If self storage customers just take care of a few basic facts they will make their transition from one location to another smoother.
Have you ever been into one of those large kitchen and bath stores that literally have isles and isles of nothing but different sizes of storage containers ? There are so many different shapes, colors and functions of these bowls, boxes and bins that it boggles the mind. There are huge storage containers for blankets and clothes, specific ones created for holiday wrapping and bows. There are plastic pizza boxes that keep your crust crunchy, and candy bowls that lock tight for your sweet tooth munchies. People are absolutely obsessed with organizing their lives, from the socks in their drawers to the spices in their kitchens. But why is organization so important that it has spawned a huge industry to cater to and exploit this human characteristic? The fact that you can walk into a store and literally box up and compartmentalize the entire contents of your home is intriguing, to say the least. Really, who needs a few storage containers for their vacuum cleaner?
Perhaps it is more deeply ingrained than we realize. Humans are complex and amazing creatures who feel the overwhelming need to make sense out of their environment by naming, distinguishing and understanding the world around them. This leads to the formation of opinions and emotions. After all, if something is other than you, you must feel a certain way about it, yes? Controlling the environment, whether by putting everything neatly in its place or cutting down trees and laying claim to a piece of the planet, is one of the ways that people feel grounded in a Universe that, face it, is inconceivably vast.
Humans are internally conscious of the vastness of space as well as their tiny, seemingly inconsequential place within it, perched on a pebble that is spinning wildly around the sun with no concrete sense of purpose. Whether you pour your cereal into special storage containers with color coded lids, or use other forms of compartmentalizing your life such as labeling other races, religions or doctrines as other than you, it is all a matter of attempting to make sense and to feel safe in the vast and infinite Universe. Even houses, cars and jobs can be considered different types of storage containers that hold the various contents of our lives, ideas, and personalities.
Why are humans so attached to the idea of being separate? Have you ever seen a flock of birds moving and shifting gracefully as one large entity, each individual bird connected to the entire flock by some invisible force of oneness? The birds are not separate from each other in that moment. They are one cohesive mass of fluttering beauty. Just imagine how much more peaceful the Earth and all of its inhabitants would be if humans began living in harmony with each other, with all of life in all of its beauty, rather than sectioning off, designating ownership and controlling as much of the world as they could make claim to. The knowledge of our oneness with each other would not allow for us to hate, to kill, to destroy, for if we did it would be self destructive. It is self destructive now, but through our lens of separation, we are blind to the pain we cause ourselves. To be one, we must see ourselves as one.
posted by Self Storage Owner June 27, 2008 6:42 | permalink | Self Storage Customer Unfolding The Storage Containers In Our Mind
The mind is a giant storage container . It holds our thoughts, emotions, judgments, ideas, knowledge, values and expectations. Humans interpret the world around them by compartmentalizing these neuro chemically based impulses and lightning fast flashes of thought into neat little boxes, such as good or bad, right or wrong, ugly or pretty, useful or useless. These assumptions reverberate through our personalities and are expressed to the world without our even realizing it. It is the wet clay that molds and shapes our view of ourselves, of others and of what is possible, and forms a strong base for the layers of experience that are assembled and built upon throughout the years. We create our experience based on the judgments, thoughts and assumptions that we make about the world.
Some sections of the storage container that is our brain have been closed for years, perhaps for our entire lives. The experience of being born, for instance, is not something that most people easily recall. Coming from the relative safety and isolation of your mothers dark, wet womb and falling into a noisy, bright and chaotic world, lungs burning with your first gasp of actual breath, being touched and manipulated by strangers, must feel incredibly traumatizing and intense. Birth profoundly affects the rest of our lives, even though the vast majority of people completely forget that first moment of life where you felt alienated, frightened and alone for the very first time. The storage container is locked up tight, stored away, and forgotten. Or so it seems. Trauma from childhood, though it may be buried and hidden, still resides within us, and still affects us.
Just because the storage container is closed and locked does not mean that the memories that live within them do not exist. The storage container that is our mind is permeable, you see. It is an ironic twist of physics that what appears to be a solid mass is really composed of mostly empty space. The reason that you can not put your hand through a wall is not that the wall is solid. On the contrary, the atoms that comprise both the wall and your hand are made up of 99.99 percent space.
It is the electromagnetic properties of matter that keep things appearing separate. Just as everything is composed of space and energy, always moving, never static and able to change form instantaneously, so too do our thoughts change form and affect our lives deeply. One never truly knows the origins of our habitual behaviors and defense mechanisms.
Keeping the box open, allowing yourself to remain flexible in this world of unending possibilities and letting the energy flow the way that it will, gives your compartmentalized and rigid mind the freedom to explore. Be open. Be willing to learn. Fluidity and presence of mind enter when the heart is not closed, when the box is not closed. Graceful acceptance of all of lifes mysterious phases and opportunities gives one the perspective that anything is indeed possible. After all, living your life within the tight confines of a self constructed box may keep you feeling safe, but like the baby in the mothers womb, isolated and void of new experience. It is not until you experience the fear and trauma of breaking free that the world in all of its splendor opens up before you.
posted by Self Storage Owner June 26, 2008 6:59 | permalink | General 25 Uses For Storage Buildings
Do you think that storage buildings are just for storing old couches, tables and mattresses? Well, think again. There are a plethora of other uses for storage buildings whether they are the solid, stationary ones, or the portable kind that can be transported across the country.
1. Store your old vinyl record collection. Keep Jimi, Janis and the rest of your 60s favorites safe and snug in a climate controlled facility. 2. Store all of your personal belongings and set off on a once in a lifetime backpacking excursion spanning two continents. 3. Pack away all of your obsolete electronics so that one day you can make a giant art deco sculpture out of them. 4. Use the space as a workshop where you create amazing giant sculptures made out of old electronics. 5. Temporary housing if you get caught up in an argument with your wife and lose, which you will. 6. Woodworking shop and tool keeping. 7. Build a robot. 8. Store your childrens toys. You know, the ones that they cried over for weeks and when they finally got them never once played with them? 9. Second garage for all of Dads playthings. You know, the ones that he cried over for weeks and once he got them never once played with them? 10. Sleeping quarters for the mother-in-law. 11. Sleeping quarters for the brother-in-law. 12. Store your parents collection of salt and pepper shakers from every place that they have ever been. 13. Store your swimming pool noodles, your floaties, your blow up islands, your rafts and your paddling flotation devices during the cold winter months. 14. Store your snow chains, snow tires, salt spreader, snow shovels, bags of gloves, thermal socks and snow suits in the hot summer months. 15. Now that you have finally admitted that you are not going to be a rock star, but you can not bring yourself to sell your equipment, go ahead and pack up your guitars, your amplifiers, your mixing board, your pedals, your mic, your drum set and all of the cables and wires that go with them and store them away until your son or daughter wants to be a rock star. They will be just like new! 16. Remember that giant stuffed gorilla that you won your son at the amusement park? Oh yeah. 17. It is a perfect place to put that pesky home gym that you keep tripping over on your way to the kitchen every morning. 18. It is an extra closet for your wifes crazy and uncontrollable purse addiction. 19. Maybe storage buildings are where all of the unmatched socks are. 20. Store the gold velvet pimp couch here until your wife finally relents and lets you put it in the basement. 21. Use it as a meditation room and find your true purpose by looking within. 22. Store all of the kitchen gadgets you saw on TV that you absolutely had to have, such as the pancake pastry maker, the knives that cut through solid gold, and the one minute radioactive meat cooker. 23. Put away that creepy garden gnome collection, for crying out loud. 24. Books? Who needs books in there house when you have the Internet? Store those books and make room for a big screen plasma TV! 25. And of course, storage buildings are the perfect place to store your old baby items because inevitably someone, sometime, will appreciate that odorless diaper pail.
Ok, ok. Maybe some of these uses are silly and meant to be taken with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but you get the idea. Storage buildings are versatile and functional, affordable and easily accessible. Use storage buildings ! It will make your life easier.
posted by Self Storage Owner June 25, 2008 5:47 | permalink | Self Storage Owner Storage Space - A Link To The Afterlife
Ben knew that the human brain was an incredible enigma, a vast storage space of ideas and inclinations, thoughts and emotional impulses. Since childhood Ben had understood that it was his brain that gave him the mental capacity to form words and pictures in his mind, to reason, to see and know anything at all. Ben was confident in his perceptions and his intelligence, until one chilly October day that left him dumbstruck.
That particular morning, the clouds hung heavy in the sky and the temperature was dropping rapidly. The weatherman had said to expect lows in the teens by nightfall. The town was preparing for a cold front that might bring snow before morning. Wanting to get a jump on the last of the raking before the weather turned, Ben went out to the old storage space in his backyard that held his lawn and garden tools.
As he went to open the door to the storage space , he felt an eerie sensation. The hairs all along the back of his neck and up his arms stood on end. Ben quickly switched from surprise to reason, assuming that the chill in the air was what had done it. Bens backyard rested up against the old town cemetery. It was a beautiful graveyard with stones that were over 200 years old. Ben rarely saw anyone in the cemetery, which had long ago stopped accepting the deceased, as the acreage that it occupied had been long since used up. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben thought he saw someone in the cemetery but did not look up. He opened the door to the storage space , reached in and retrieved his rake from a hook on the wall, and closed the door.
Ben had the distinct feeling that he was being watched as he walked around the shed. Again, from the corner of his eye he saw movement, and this time, he looked up. A man and a woman were standing at the fence that divided Bens property from the cemetery property. They were holding hands, staring directly at Ben with unwavering eyes. They did not move. They did not smile. Ben thought they must be wearing costumes, maybe actors in a play nearby, because they seemed to be dressed as if they were in the 1920s. Ben nodded and smiled. He wondered if they wanted to talk to him about something since they were standing at his fence and staring at him.
Ben started toward the couple and as he came within 30 feet of them, he opened his mouth to speak. Before he could utter the word hello, the figures disappeared into thin air. The rake fell to the ground as Ben stopped in his tracks. His usually cool and calm brain reeled and spun as he tried to make sense of what he had just witnessed. Had they ever been there at all? Where had they gone? Who were they and why did they stare at him so intently? Ben scanned the length of the cemetery looking for any sign of the vanished couple, but there was nothing.
Perplexed and scared, Ben walked back up towards the house to put the rake back on the hook in the storage space and as he did, the end of the rake jostled a small box up on a shelf that he had never really paid attention to. He opened the rusted metal box and revealed a collection of old photographs, faded with age. The box must have been a storage space for photos of the people that had originally owned the house which was built in the early 1920s. As Ben sat looking through the pictures, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He was holding in his had a picture of the very couple that had just been staring at him from behind the fence. He realized that they had been the original owners of his home. Ben found out that day that there are some things that even the mighty human brain can not fully fathom.
