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Maxwell Stone here…..

It’s about 9pm and I’m here at Starbucks quietly writing this out on my smartphone. Got my headphones on listening to some New Age/meditation style of music (Karunesh). It’s nothing special for me to come here to Starbucks other than the fact that I don’t usually come here. LOL Yeah I’m not gonna lie, I’ve just never been a big Starbucks fan. I’ve always felt their coffee was well above overpriced and not for people of my kind. But now because of the following facts……that I expect myself to be a millionaire, so money in the future will be a bar that is adjustable, the fact that I MUST raise my own internal standards, and a personal joy for me, the fact that I have had a chance to sip on the flavor of java from different places other than this continent (Paris and Spain specifically), I can now appreciate the depth of coffee…. But with that being said… to me their coffee here at Starbucks sadly is still just over rated and not as tasty and flavorful as it should be for the price that they expect. And what little food they offer here feels over priced and I might as well be shopping at Whole Foods. But all that aside, Starbucks does tend to have a much better quality of atmosphere than the other options In my neighborhood, and joyfully it’s a place where others come to quietly drink their mocha shhmocha bad for your body pumped sugar drinks and either quietly socialize with one another, or work on homework, or keep themselves busy on their laptops.  So maybe, just but maybe I should change my mentality about Starbucks and come here more often. It’s better than my local McDonald’s or any of the million Mexican restaurants that are located on nearly every damn corner of where I live.

Painfully now a days, In this new skin that I am veraciously trying to wrestle myself into, I am still catching myself always subconsciously trying to dig for my niche in my neighborhood. Idk, currently It’s just no easy task for me grow internally and find like minded people on this side of town. Maybe it just me, and it’s something that I need to do more development on, but it’s just tough to grow on a side of town that has always been financially challenged and for the most part, as far back as I can remember, crocheted together with people that are mentally beat to complacency and void of remembering the words…. Internal growth. And yes, I’m sure there are better places for me to relax and write, but because for some time now I just don’t really like driving very far, I already drive about 600 miles a week for work in Austin, so this particular spot is gonna have to do for now.

Now earlier I was sitting at home behind a computer monitor for 8 long nonstop hours doing uber mundane work and listening to the repetitive news channel from the TV (more about that in a minute), rather than being behind a monitor and keyboard controller creating music. This is only one reason of why I am here at Starbucks. Another reason I am not at home is because currently, at home, all I see is work. You see before I purchased the 4plex I decided to get my feet wet in real estate the hard way, by personally tearing down the garage (yes I said garage) that I was living in and build my own house. Oddly enough, maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing, again, idk, but my hands have literally touched just about every piece of wood and  sheetrock in that house. And not to mention that I now have a good sense of prices on materials even though luckily now a days I don’t go to Home Depot every day. (We’ll see how long that will last)  And although my house is currently livable and better built than most of the houses on my side of town, it still just needs more work. But we will save that endeavor for another post.

So yeah, at home there is still much work to be done. But tonight isn’t just about that either….. Instead, Today I was supposed to have a plumber go and do a job for me at the 4plex and sadly he left me hanging.  He was actually supposed to get the job done yesterday but because he is just a plumber and not a Landlord, he doesn’t realize that I need to give my tenants an exact time frame before I just randomly disturb their life. (At least that’s how I feel a Landlord should be) He gave me reasons why he couldn’t get the job done at the time first specified, and offered other times but again, whenever possible, my tenants need more than a 30 minute heads up. Especially for something that is going to take at-least 4 to 6 hours to complete and not allow them to use the water. So in the end we decided to reschedule for today at 8am. Then late last night I texted him and told him if he could wait until noon to get things started, as I got side tracked and forgot to text my tenants. But I never heard back from him, maybe he didn’t get my text last night. Who knows…… Either way I called him 3 times and he never returned my call. I can only assume that he doesn’t want my money. Maybe he died. Hopefully not, but who knows.  He just never returned my call.

Then there is my worker, so far, he seems to be a good guy, but today he too left me hanging.  I contract labor with him so that I don’t have to deal with the hassles of having an actual “employee”. I actually tried the “employee” route with a childhood friend, but within a year of my childhood friend working for me things went south, and NOT in a good way. It taught me many, many. many ….. did I say many yet??? It taught me many profound lessons about myself, my childhood friend, and the “Employer” aspect of business.  It’s a sad story, I no longer have a “need” to speak to my childhood friend anymore, but we’ll save the lose of a friend for another day.

But yeah, back to today….. plumber,  a no show. My worker…. also a no show.  This type of stuff is a prime example of things that can easily set me in a bad mood because it only causes more delays to attaining my goals that I have set for my own personal time schedule. But so today…. I took a different route, I took a different mindset. I took some much read advice, and so today I pivoted. Today I actually spent the last 8 grueling hours working on my receipts. Why would I do hundreds of receipts myself??? Good question.  Besides the fact that I need to learn the discipline and it’s important that I learn as best as possible where my money goes and how the basics of accounting is done, it also let’s me see my spending habits and kinda, just kinda helps me to decide how I should allocate or reallocate my money in not just my business life, but also my personal life. Plus, I am just not sure if I can really afford to have a book keeper organize and prepare all of my receipts for me in the manner that I would want things organzied.

Dang….. Look at the clock fly……Sadly Starbucks is about to close. I’ll write more later.

Max.