PhineasC

If you are an organized business-minded person who likes to work with your hands, there is a ton of money to be made in the trades right now. Biggest hurdle I see with these guys is they have so much work being thrown at them they lose track of it all and get stunted to where they can't grow. Skilled tradesmen are literally being flagged down in parking lots and begged to take jobs, but they are not able to handle the business back-end aspects of that. It's funny and sad to see.

The skilled contractor I have overseeing the work at my house says he has more jobs than he can handle, but his two issues are shortages of materials and shortages of helpers. It seems the work is there but the usual younger helper types don't want to do the work, or they can't for some reason (work ethic, personal issues such as drugs, etc.). It's concerning if construction numbers are already down in the summer, as that is when business is usually booming for these guys. Winters tend to be the lean time.

That VT number seems like an outlier. Did they have a tighter lockdown that is to blame?

Get off my lawn!

The people who become wealthy off the restaurant business have several of them and they are high-end/pricy. They also take their money from that and parlay it into other more profitable ventures. The guy who owns the local Italian place in town is not getting "rich." I cringe when I see young idealist types point at someone like that and put them in the same category as Jeff Bezos: a rich fatcat who needs to be taxed to death.

I feel like a lot of people are just "floating" right now without a job and exhausting every last source of credit they have, which gives the impression that all is well, but the huge crash is coming soon. There is a lag effect at work.

There is plenty of work out there, you just have to want to do it. Many don't. A lot of kids from the middle class don't even work in HS anymore. When I was in HS, we all worked part-time jobs. You had to make money somehow.

They have thin margins and require good management. There are many stories of packed restaurants with great reviews that still somehow end up underwater and forced to close because the management was not watching supplies, pay for employees, taxes, fees, etc. It's a very tricky business.

It sounds like you are a lot more engaged with local gossip and happenings than I am. I have three houses in different states, and I can't recall ever caring what the locals were yapping about online. I just pull in my driveway, go in my house, and go about my business. Never had an issue. Maybe the grannies are peering through the blinds at me and making posts on Facebook about it; I wouldn't know. I did have one neighbor in DE send me some BS text in March about how me coming down there would be "a huge risk given the health situation." LOL it wasn't a big deal, dude is always a bit of a butthead and we followed the state lockdown orders anyway.

Why do you subject yourself to worrying about what people are saying on social media? It's toxic there. I would pay it exactly zero mind.

When I'm in Randolph, it's very easy to forget almost entirely about COVID, protests, riots, and politics. It isn't until I return to MD just outside Baltimore that all that stuff comes rushing back to the forefront. We are rapidly heading towards making Randolph the primary residence for the foreseeable future.

I never wear a mask. I am always blazing hot when skiing. I am the guy with the jacket half unzipped when it's single digits.

It's like the beaches. There was never any rational explanation for the concern over beaches, but, for whatever reason, people focused in on them as a major nexus of COVID spread. It never made much sense.

I have never skied Black Mountain but it definitely appears to be very "rustic." I could see there being some debris just off the trails.

I’m really glad I bought the house in Randolph outright. I think some tight restrictions on out-of-staters and daily pass people could be coming.

I bought a vehicle in NH and put NH plates on it in part to avoid any issues if they suddenly decide to tighten the rules with something like plate checks at the resorts. NH has been pretty level-headed with the COVID restrictions, IMO. Some of the restrictions in other states seem a bit random or reactionary. I am not sure what to expect from states such as NY and VT this fall in terms of restrictions. I feel like any hint of a rise in new cases will send them back hard towards full lockdown.

We bought season passes for Cannon and Bretton Woods. Weekdays only.

I have a private PM thread with ORH where we talk about how mean you VT posters are. Bunch of poopyheads, the lot of you!

Yeah, like I said it seems a bit overwrought to me. Facebook is a terrible place to look when trying to render judgements about anyone or anything.

I never detected a single hint of bad vibes or an attitude from anyone in New Hampshire, even when I was there with MD plates when lockdowns across the country were still in full swing. Even being in an area that does not get a lot of long-term tourists and mostly seems like locals (Randolph/Gorham/Berlin), it has been fine. To be honest, it seems like the locals have been bending over backwards to be nice because they all want me to spend money on their services and at their shops given the crushed economy up there. Maybe it is different in VT. There is definitely a different feel between the two states; even my tone deaf self can pick it up. But this all feels overwrought to me. If VT guys are like Powderfreak and Phish it seems like a really chill place. LOL

Buy a car and put VT plates on it.

LOL yeah. I love J.Spin’s posts but his version of family skiing is clearly far beyond what we are doing. 2 dozen nice downhill days on groomed trails sounds about right for us.

I’ll be doing my part for Cannon, Bretton Woods, and Wildcat.

We are assuming the lodge stuff will be restricted/closed or at least really annoying. So we are planning to go direct from the car to the slopes as much as possible. I'm getting all 4 kids some equipment at the local ski swap place so we don't have to mess with rentals of any sort.

LOL 5 years. I doubt we get this in January.