Chapter 9

Day 9 as a Millionaire (Wednesday, March 18, 2009)

In the Bahamas

As Tom returns to the room he is greeted by Iliana "Did you get it taken care of?"

"Not yet! There's some major screwup with my bank. They say my credit card is maxed out and my bank account is overdrawn."

"How could you let that happen, Tom" Iliana whines "I thought you said you were loaded! What happened to all your money? What are we going to live on? How will we get back home?"

"Don't worry, I'll get it worked out. I just need to talk to Melissa and see what's going on with the bank."

"Why Melissa? What does she have to do with it Tom?"

"The bank told me that a few days ago the credit card was maxed out by purchases made with her card to the same account. There was a recent charge of almost $7000 to the CoOp and $2500 to Best Buy. With our purchase of dinner last night on the card it is now overlimit by $28.00. I didn't think Melissa even knew about the credit account or her credit card. I hid it in the files when it arrived several years ago."

"Well what about your debit card? Don't you have any money in the bank?"

"That's all gone too! The B&$%h spent everything in the checking and savings account too! I need to talk to her and get this straightened out. That was my money not hers to spend!" he replied as he went to the room phone and angrily punched in his home number.

He shortly slams down the phone "The Hotel won't let me make any phone calls without a credit card to secure the room charges! I'll have to go use the pay phone in the lobby. I'll be back shortly."

"Well hurry up Tom. I'm getting hungry and we can't order room service either from the hotel. I already tried" Iliana shouted as the room door slammed shut.

Grass Valley

After a sound night of sleeping without interruption I see that it is 5:30 when I wake in the morning. A quick look out the window shows everything is covered with frost so winter is still reluctantly hanging on. I decide my exercises will again be done indoors. After some warm-up stretching I go down to the work-out room and cycle through each of the machines just like Adrianne demonstrated for me yesterday. I am just finishing my five mile stretch on the treadmill when Adrianne and Emma come into the room both looking very attractive in Blue silk jogging shorts over silver tights topped off with matching tank-tops.

"It looks like you ladies got your Beauty Sleep last night" I commented.

"What do you mean Beauty Sleep? We've been slaving away in the kitchen getting your breakfast ready." Adrianne retorted.

A quick glance at my watch revealed it was already 7:15. "My Apologies! I better get a move on if I'm going to be ready for breakfast!" I picked up my towel, wiped the sweat off my head, threw it over my shoulders and headed out saying "I'll see you at breakfast".

Back in my room, I fired up my laptop and logged into my real estate web email account. There were half a dozen leads requesting various bits of information about real estate and some specific homes. I forwarded them all to Terry then logged into my real estate office email account.

Here I found a message from Terry reporting that our sale had closed and that we should be receiving checks today. I responded asking him if he could deposit my commission check for me. I told him where to find a deposit slip and which bank to take it to.

There were some additional office emails from various agents giving notice of new listings, price changes, etc. There was also an email from the sales manager asking the agents to give him any changes needed in floor time for next month. I responded to that email informing him that I would be out of town most of April and that Terry was handling all my business. I asked him to just assign my floor time slots to Terry for this month.

Terry also reported that we were well on our way to having the most listings in the office this month. If our trend kept up, one of us would have the preferred parking spot next month. Since I would be there infrequently, it was obvious who would be using the parking spot. I emailed him a thank-you for helping me out and suggested we might get together in about a week to discuss a more formal, permanent relationship for our business. I expected to be in town some time in a week or ten days.

I turned my attention to my stock trading account and discovered that both the trucking company and the railroad company stocks were moving in a direction favorable for me. The trucking company stock price had fallen by twenty percent. I could now buy the 1.5 million dollars of stock I had contracted to sell for 1.2 million dollars. If I were to close out my position today, I would receive my investment of $300,000 and an additional $300,000 in profit for a 100 percent return in only three days. The rail stock had risen by twenty seven percent making my 1.5 million in stock worth 1.9 million. My $300,000 investment in the rail stock has made me $405,000 profit in three days. I'll hope this trend will continue, but I adjusted my trigger points so that if either market turned around, my stock position would automatically be closed out capturing the profit already earned.

Checking my personal email, I had received the Oregon State Patrol Background check form from my friend. It was a Word document designed for filling out on a computer and submitting. I filled out what information I had, printed it out, and put it into the mail for Dale to fill out and return to me. I enclosed it with a cover letter, letting him know that I was doing this in preparation for hiring him after completing his detox. program.

I was down for breakfast by 8:15. Beverly was just digging into her breakfast. "Mom said you should go ahead and start without them as she and Adrianne were going to finish their workout before coming to breakfast" She reported.

"Thanks! I believe I will, as I've got a busy day today" I responded as I filled my plate. "Doing anything interesting today? I guess you'll be on your own today with Trudy leaving for Portland at noon?"

"Mom has me helping her with some of the house cleaning since Adrianne is farming. I think we're going to clean out the garage this afternoon. Take good care of Trudy this week. I'm going to miss seeing her. I sure hope they can fix up her eyes good!"

"We'll do our best."

I was just stacking my dirty dishes in the dish tub when Adrianne and Emma arrived. Obviously freshly showered as their hair was still damp.

"I don't know why I even bothered to shower" complained Adrianne, "I'll be out spreading cow manure within the hour. But a shower sure feels good after a workout anyway".

"Is there anything going on with you today that I need to prepare for?" Emma asked me.

"I can't think of anything. I'm having lunch with Gannon and some of his friends at Doc's and then I'll be leaving with Melissa for the rest of the week in Portland. So, I won't be needing any breakfasts or dinners. I won't be needing the room until next week. Would you like me to take my things out while I'm gone?"

"No need to do that. We don't have any reservations requiring that room. Actually, I've blocked out that room for your use for the rest of the month. Is that OK?"

"That is great. Go ahead and charge my room for the rest of the month so you get your payment."

"We usually don't charge our guest's accounts until they check out. But we'll charge your account one week at a time as the week is completed."

"Whatever works for you. I'm really enjoying my stay here and am happy to pay for the privilege."

With that I headed upstairs to get my coat, hat, gloves, and camera then out to my truck.

In the Bahamas

"Did you get it taken care of?" he hears upon re-entering the room again ten minutes later.

"No! I spent three dollars only to be greeted by the answering machine. I don't know if anyone was there but nobody would pick up." He angrily replied. "I'll have to try again later. I guess we better check out of this hotel and find a cheaper one to stay in tonight as I don't have the cash to stay here another night. We'll get some lunch as soon as we get checked into another place."

After they got checked into a budget motel on the wrong side of town and were just finishing their lunch at a open air snack bar near by Iliana says "I'm almost scared to stay in that place. Did you see those creepy guys hanging out on the patio by the office? Why don't we just go to the airport and see if we can use our return ticket's a few days early?"

"Uhh, that could be a problem..." Tom hesitatingly replied.

"I know it would cost a little to change them but I have another hundred dollars that should cover it." She replied.

"Well,. Uhh, you see ... I didn't purchase round trip tickets. I didn't know how long we'd be staying so I purchased one-way tickets thinking we could buy our return tickets whenever we wanted" he explained.

"What! Your kidding Right!" she practically screamed.

"Unfortunately, No" He mumbled.

"You idiot. What made you think you could risk one-way tickets to a foreign country. What if you lost your wallet. What if something happened needing an emergency trip home. What if someone took all your money!"

"No Wait. Someone did take all your money. I can't believe you were so stupid." She was on a rant now.

"I'm sorry Iliana! I can see how it was a mistake now. We'll get through it some how though, I'm sure!"

"You're sure! How can you be sure? We're stuck in this backwards country with no money and no way to get home and You're Sure!"

As she shook her head in anger the sunlight glinted of the new earrings he had given her just as they had arrived in Bermuda almost two weeks ago.

"Uh honey? Perhaps we could pawn those earrings you're wearing. We should be able to get enough money from them to buy our return tickets"

"No Way! You gave them to me and I'm keeping them!" She shouted as she got up from the table flinging her chair back and to the floor. She stomped down the sidewalk heading back to the motel they had recently registered at.

Tom hurried to pay their check and ran to catch up with her before she went out of sight. He caught up with her just before reaching the motel.

"I'm sorry, Honey! I didn't mean it. We can find another way to get home" he pled.

"Don't Honey me! And stay away from me. I don't want to talk to you any more. Go away!" she shouted.

Tom spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the area. He found a pawn shop where he hawked his wrist watch for $50 giving him enough money for another night at the budget motel and some food to eat. He also spent another three dollars trying to call Melissa and slammed down the phone upon hearing the answering machine greeting.

Grass Valley

As I pulled into the yard at Wayne's place, Trudy and Melissa came down the road on their 4-wheelers. As I got out of my truck the garage door started opening. When it was open, Jacinth walked out saying, "Missy called to say you guys were going to ride out and check on the cattle. You may as well take your 4-wheeler. You can leave it here, or take it to Missy's place."

"Thanks Jacinth. I think I'll leave it here for now as I won't be using it real regularly for a while. We'll see how it goes in a few days. But I'll be happy to use it right now."

Just as I had pulled it out of the garage, pausing for Melissa and Trudy to restart their machines, Steve pulled into the yard and stepped out of his truck. We all shut down our engines and stepped over to greet him.

"I'm glad I caught you before you left. I won't keep you long." Looking over at Melissa, He asked "Would it be alright if I got out the 5020 and the plows and started turning the sod where Adrianne's been spreading the fertilizer. I'm getting so excited about seeing you start to make something of this ranch that I want to get involved. You don't need to pay me anything but I would just love to do some field work. Plowing was always one of my favorite tasks. I just love the challenge of making those furrows straight and seeing the soil freshly turned after several years of growing."

"I'll be happy to have your help, Dad," replied Melissa. "Just make sure you don't overdo it and I don't want you to feel obligated to help me."

"No problem. Xenia already made me promise not to spend more than six hours a day in the field. And I'll just do it as long as I'm still having fun."

"Alright Dad, but I'll be checking with mom to make sure your not doing too much. The fuel tanks are full now. The Co-op was out this morning and filled them up. Please fill out the log sheets in the tractor when you refuel and to record your work."

"What's this about log sheets?"

"I've been studying a little about enterprise cost accounting and I want to be able to know more about the cost and production of our ranch. I've set up my accounting software to provide enterprise cost accounting for each field, as well as for the herds of horses and cattle. We'll even be tracking the costs of most of the equipment. If we do timely record keeping as our work is done it will be fairly easy to capture the information I'll need for the cost accounting process. Each of the machines with an engine has a log book with columns to record the appropriate usage and cost figures. I had the Co-op install flow meters on each of the fuel tanks so that we can measure how much fuel is used for each machine. I've already gone over this with Adrianne. Now I guess you, Steve, and Leon are aware of it also and can get with the program. If you ever have any questions about what to record, you all have my cell phone number."

"Well, Well! Your turning into quite the little business women, aren't you?" Steve teased. "I'll be happy to 'get with the program' and help you out with that." He added. "Well, I'll get to work, and let you guys start your ride." Steve got back in his truck and headed over to the machine shed where the tractors were stored.

"We then started our machines and headed south on the dirt road through Wayne's ranch. We went past the field Adrienne had worked in yesterday. The newly spread manure was both obvious and odorous in covering about a quarter of the field. We followed the road back to the pasture where the Morgan Horse herd was pasturing. After entering the field we dismounted and slowly crossed the field making a count of the livestock. We found the following animals, all seeming to be in healthy condition:

The pasture was a full 480 acres that would need to carry the cattle until they could be moved to the lease on the First of June. The Morgan herd would probably be kept here all summer. The growth on the field varied considerably. There were areas where the grass was eaten quite closely and other areas where the grass was being left to grow quite tall.

After completing our inventory and looking over the pasture Melissa questioned "How can we arrange this pasture so that the grass is used more evenly? The areas that are kept cropped real short will never develop enough to grow the best volume of feed, and the areas left long will go to waste."

"We'll probably need to divide up the pasture and move the animals between fields to force them to eat the grass down uniformly and then give it a break to recover. We should probably divide the field into six 80 acre fields. It looks like there are irrigation main lines that would provide access to irrigation water for each field. You'd need to purchase some more irrigation pipes so that you can provide water to encourage the grass to grow better. It looks like Wayne put in the water mains but has not put in the distribution pipes."

"I'll see about contracting with someone to build some fences for us as soon as we get back from Portland. I'll need to look into buying some more sprinkler systems as well to irrigate this pasture."

With that we returned to the 4 wheelers and headed to the east to Wayne's other pasture. Again we climbed off the machines and walked slowly across the pasture checking out the animals and the pasture conditions. This field had 250 head of black cows with white faces. They were obviously Angus crossed with Hereford. It appeared that each of those cows had a calf that was about two months old. The calves were all brown with a mixture of white patterns on their faces. They looked like their fathers must have been the 11 Charlais bulls also in the pasture. There was also 200 head of similarly colored yearlings that looked like they were probably 600 to 700 lbs each.

This pasture was already fenced off into 80 acre plots. However, the gates between them were all open so that the cattle were spread across all 320 acres. Just like on the other pasture there were under used and over used areas. However, this entire pasture was slated to be planted into crops this spring. We would continue to let the cattle graze here until we plowed it under to prepare for spring planting. Ideally, the other pasture would be divided up by then and we could move some livestock into it. We could also graze the fields that were scheduled for summer fallow. There were five of them and they were all individually fenced. Since they were not adjoining, it would take a little more effort to move the cattle, but it was quite doable.

With that done I headed back to Wayne's place, while the girls headed back to their home. When I got back the garage door was still open, so I backed the four-wheeler into it. Jacinth opened the door into the house. As she pushed the button to close the door, she invited "Leon, why don't you stay for lunch. I was just putting something out for us."

"I'd love to!" I replied. "However, I'm already scheduled for a business lunch with Gannon and several of his friends at Doc's. Perhaps another time we can do that!" I came into the back porch from the garage and then went outside to my pickup.

After stopping at Emma's for a quick shower and change of cloths I was pulling into the parking lot at Doc's just as Gannon & Heidi were greeting a trim lady with short black hair and two teenagers with hugs. As I got out of my pickup Gannon pulled them over to me and greeted me "Hello Leon, I'd like you to meet Heidi's daughter Brenda, and her children Callie and Denver."

I stepped forward and shook their hands greeting them "It is my pleasure to meet you Brenda, ... Callie, ... Denver. Welcome to Grass Valley."

"Thank-you, Leon. It's nice to meet you too." Brenda replied as we headed for the door where Doc was standing holding the door open for us.

We were soon shown to a corner table in the dinning room that was set off a little from the rest of the room to provide a little privacy. I was seated on one side of the table with Callie and then Denver, while Brenda was seated across from me with Heidi then Gannon beside her.

We held off discussing our business until desert, simply getting to know one another. I learned that Brenda had been widowed ten years ago when her husband, an Oregon National Guard member was killed in a training accident. Since then, she had dedicated her personal life to raising Callie and Denver. The twins were smart, athletic, and had a lively sense of humor. They were slightly acquainted with Trudy and Bev from past visits where they had met several times.

As we were cutting into our deserts Gannon started "Well Leon, Brenda, I guess we can start the job interview now."

I responded "I don't think we need to be so formal. You chose Brenda to work with us, and that's good enough for me. Rather than look at this as a job interview, why don't we just start planning how to address our business?"

"I was hoping you would have no objections to working with Brenda." added Heidi.

"Just to make sure we're on the same page now, Brenda, why don't you summarize your understanding of what we will be doing" I suggested.

"Heidi, Gannon, and I talked quite a bit about this on the phone last night and this morning. I guess I will be your secretary, helping you with the day-to-day tasks of managing several trusts that Gannon and his late wife set up to preserve their collection and the financial support of Gannon..."

"Stop there for a minute, please. For this to work with the work load I see coming in my life, we need to promote you right now. With Gannon's permission, your position in this effort needs to be Executive Director. Between you and me, and in consultation with Gannon and Heidi, we will establish broad goals and objectives. You will be responsible for obtaining those goals. You will periodically report your activities, successes, and challenges to me and we will evaluate your strategies and revise our objectives when needed. While we will meet more frequently as we get started, I envision you and I needing to meet every month or so, with phone conversations whenever needed for consultation and feedback. We should probably schedule quarterly meetings like this with Gannon and Heidi. What do you think Gannon?"

"You can organize this however you want, Leon. I've already made you the trustee of all my estate. I am pleased with your confidence in Brenda, and would have no objection to her taking this much responsibility as long as you make yourself available to her, whenever she needs your advice or assistance."

"Alright Then! Brenda, how much do you know about the trusts' holdings?"

"Heidi already gave me a list of the stock held by each of the trusts. I've done a little research on them, but I need to do a more in depth study. I don't know anything about the antique certificates that Gannon gave you." She began.

We went on to discuss what we knew about stocks already in the portfolio and about potential industries and companies to consider. After about an hour we summarized our meeting. The industries we would specialize in would include agribusiness, transportation, equipment manufacturing, and financial services. We would determine the status and ownership interests represented by the antique certificates as soon as possible. Brenda will educate herself (through online research, or class work) in day-trading of stocks and establish a strategy and tactics for making it profitable. Brenda will identify resources we can use to investigate the internals of any companies we develop an interest in. I will introduce her to Napoleon and have her work with him in researching the antique certificates. Brenda will prepare an in depth analysis of the internals of any companies we hold stock in for our next meeting. We will meet again in a week's time.

When they had finished their deserts, Callie and Denver had excused themselves to go play outside.

Before I left I got Napoleon on the phone. I set my phone to speaker and introduced Brenda, Gannon, and Heidi and asked that he work with Brenda in the future regarding the stock certificates he was researching. He said he had some additional progress to report but since he was due for another meeting shortly, he would email us the details this afternoon. He thought we would be quite happy with his findings. Brenda gave him her email address. While she was doing that it occurred to me that I should set up an internet domain for Smokey View Farms, as well as each of these other businesses I was getting started. Then we could have customized email addresses that applied to each business.

With that I excused myself and left for Emma's where Melissa and Trudy were ready and waiting to get started on the first leg of our trip to Portland. We had a pleasant 30 minute trip to The Dalles with Melissa discussing her plans for the ranch, Trudy speculating about working horses this summer and her excitement about the marketing program and tonight's meeting. We talked a little about our plans for our time in Portland. Obviously, Trudy would be spending some of her time in the Hospital, Melissa had some shopping to do, and I shared my plans to visit Jacinth's Nephew Keith and the research lab he worked at. Melissa also shared that she had an appointment for a consultation with a divorce attorney.

The Dalles

When we arrived in town, I dropped Melissa and Trudy off at Wal-Mart. They were saving their real shopping for the Portland Malls but had some purchases to make which Wal-Mart could satisfy. I went to the county courthouse where I filed the paperwork for the formation of Oregon Grass Valley Ranch, and the purchase of Steve and Wayne's property.

Following that I went to the US Bank and opened a safe deposit box under the name of "Elsie Transportation Trust" and deposited all the stock certificates Gannon had entrusted me with. I went back to Wal-Mart and made a few purchases of my own before it was time for dinner. Melissa and Trudy joined me at the exit as we walked back out to the truck.

We arrived at the Olive Garden and as we were walking up to the door I dialed Lacey's cell phone to see where she was. I immediately heard a phone ring behind me. Looking back I saw an attractive woman in a conservative business style dress and jacket remove a cell phone from her purse. When I heard her answer in stereo from my phone and in person I promptly hung up and turned back to greet her. "You must be Lacey" I said, holding my hand out to greet her. "I'm Leon and that phone call was me just checking to see where you were, and how we could get together. Talk about good timing"

"I'm pleased to meet you Leon. I too was wondering how we would get together since we did not discuss how to recognize each other." She replied.

"These are my friends Melissa and Trudy. They're traveling to Portland with me tomorrow. I hope you don't mind if they join us. I've been working with Melissa in getting her ranch organized to be more profitable. She is the one I spoke of with Kacy who needs a new tractor."

"It's my pleasure to meet you Melissa, ... and Trudy" she responded as she shook each of their hands.

"Should we wait here for Maddock?" I asked.

"No need, He'll come in and look for me when he gets here. He should be here shortly. He's usually ten to fifteen minutes late whenever I've met with him in the past. Let's go on in and get a table for the five of us."

After being seated at a fairly private table in the back and giving the waitress our drink orders, Lacey commented "I heard on the news this morning that Eugene Donley was arrested in San Francisco last night. Eugene is the owner of the Columbia Gorge Case International we were going to discuss. Apparently they made a coordinated bust at three locations in San Francisco, one in Boise, one in Yakima, and two here in The Dalles. Both of the raids in The Dalles ended in gunfights with minor injuries to several DEA agents and local officers but were fatal for seven local drug dealers. Eugene is expected to be extradited to Yakima to face charges for a series of drug crimes and several assaults."

"That's interesting. I wonder what impact that will have on what the bank wants to do with the business."

"I really don't know, but I'm sure we can find out shortly. There is Maddock now."

I turned to see an older, balding man about 5'8" tall and quite wide. He pointed to our table as he was greeted by the hostess and made some comment to her. He came directly to our table where I stood to greet him.

"You must be Maddock! My name is Leon" I said as we shook hands. "This is my business associate Melissa and her daughter Trudy. I trust you have no objection to their joining us. I understand you already know Lacey."

"Ladies," he said bobbing his head to them before taking his seat. "No, I have no objection to them joining us. If we need to discuss any confidential matters we may need to have them sign non-disclosures, but I don't expect that at this time."

"I'll have a beer and a coffee" he told the waitress.

"Very good sir! Will you need some time to order?"

"No! I'll have the Wednesday special. Have the rest of you ordered yet?"

"We've only just received our drinks but I think we're ready to order as well" I said.

The waitress then asked if there would be separate checks. Maddock said "Yes!" Then I corrected him, saying to include everyone on my check. Maddock had no objection and actually looked a little relieved. Almost as if he had expected to have to pay for all of us.

"I was just telling Leon that Eugene had been captured with a number of..."

"That's right!" Maddock interrupted. "That idiot is going to cost us a lot of money yet! I've helped a lot of businesses get started here in The Dalles over the past twenty five years. This is the first time I've been cheated out of repayment. If it weren't for me helping with financing, probably a third of the businesses in The Dalles would not be here..." He continued to brag about what he had done for the merchants and business owners in town for another thirty minutes.

We had received our food and were starting our desert when I was finally able to interrupt his ongoing dialog by asking him "What will it take to get you out of that deal with Case Power Equipment Headquarters so that your record remains intact?"